Self-Driving Shuttles Advance in Cities, Raising Jobs Concerns

Thomas Cute, a former bus driver, will be among the first to take a ride this spring in Providence, R.I.’s new, self-driving shuttle. He and other local bus drivers will survey how the small, driverless bus makes its way from the downtown train station, over the Woonasquatucket River, to a neighborhood where few public buses currently run. But one question that’s likely to be on their minds: Will this technology take their jobs?

The company running the vehicle is May Mobility, a 2-year-old startup that just raised $22 million at an undisclosed valuation in a Series A funding round led by Millennium Technology Value Partners and Cyrus Capital Partners, The Information has learned. It plans to use the money to hire more engineers to increase reliability, expand its fleet and grow shuttle services from two to at least four U.S. cities in the coming months, an executive told The Information last week.