The Jacksonville Transportation Authority will order 100 autonomous transit vehicles from the new Holon plant that’s set to be the first first manufacturing facility for made-in-America transit shuttles that can operate without a driver on board.
German-based Holon announced last year it chose Jacksonville as the location for its $100 million manufacturing plant, in part because JTA will be the first transit agency in the country that uses autonomous shuttles in its regular fare-paying service.
The initial batch of Holon shuttles will come at a cost of $409,000 per shuttle. The rubber-tired shuttles can travel on streets and are loaded with technology for guiding them through traffic by using high-tech sensors and radar.
“Because Holon made the investment and chose to place their manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, the JTA proposes to equip the entire Ultimate Urban Circulator program with the Holon purpose-built autonomous shuttle entitled the Holon Mover,” JTA Chief Infrastructure and Development Officer Greer Johnson Gillis told the JTA board.
The JTA board unanimously agreed Tuesday to place the order with Holon for 100 of the shuttles but won’t pay for all of them at once. JTA will start by buying 14 shuttles that will run on what’s called the Bay Street Innovation Corridor between the downtown core and the sports complex.
Bay Street is the first piece of the Ultimate Urban Circulator that will replace the Skyway for moving people around downtown. JTA wants to eventually extend the service to neighborhoods surrounding downtown.
The Bay Street leg will start service in the summer. JTA is using a combination of local, state and federal funds for the $65 million design and construction of that kick-off piece of the U2C.
The federal grant awarded to JTA for the Bay Street Innovation Corridor requires the system to use autonomous transit vehicles made in the United States.
The vehicles from Holon will fit that bill but won’t be available until 2027. JTA will start the service this year down Bay Street by using retrofitted Ford E-Transit vans that meet the made-in-America standard.
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority is testing the retrofitted Ford E-Transit vans that JTA will use for starting service on the Bay Street Innovation Corridor in downtown this summer.
In addition to ordering the Holon vehicles through a state of Florida program for purchasing autonomous vehicles used in public transportation, the JTA board approved a five-year contract for up to $36.3 million for Beep, Inc. to handle operations and maintenance of the U2C on Bay Street. That expense is on top of the $65 million budget JTA has for the completing construction of that corridor.
The next phase of the U2C will reconstruct the existing elevated Skyway structure so the rubber-tired Holon vehicles can travel on both it and at street-level. When Jacksonville City Council doubled the gas tax in 2022, a list of transportation projects financed by the increase included $247 million for the Skyway conversion.
JTA is not using any of that gas tax revenue for the Bay Street corridor.
Holon could break ground in the summer for building the 500,000 square foot manufacturing plant off Heckscher Drive on the Northside.
An aerial view shows the location of the Holon autonomous vehicle factory that will be built off Heckscher Drive on the Northside.
An analysis by the Coggin College of Business at the University of North Florida shows Northeast Florida will gain almost $300 million of economic impact over four years from Holon, which will be the first automotive vehicle manufacturing plant in Florida.
The plant will generate 763 direct and indirect jobs, including 150 people who work at the plant itself, according to the report released last month by JAX Chamber.
Made in Jacksonville: Why Holon’s autonomous vehicle plant is coming here
Next stage of U2C: JTA will do new study on future of Skyway and plan to convert it for U2C shuttles
Before voting on the order of the Holon vehicles, JTA board member Aundra Wallace asked whether it would be a conflict of interest for him to vote since he was involved in recruiting Holon to Jacksonville as president of JAXUSA Partnership, the economic development arm of JAX Chamber.
Richard Milian, who is general counsel for JTA, said it’s not a conflict because Wallace’s job duties at the chamber involve negotiating with companies and Wallace does not have any financial interest in Holon.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: JTA orders 100 autonomous transit shuttles from Holon