One week after Jacksonville Transportation Authority asked Beep Inc. if it could help one of Florida’s top hospitals fight the spread of coronavirus, its self-driving vehicles were deployed.

The routes will be isolated from traffic, pedestrians and staff and will be closely monitored.

A long-awaited pilot project launched Monday in Gainesville — but this time there is no pilot. The University of Florida and the Florida Department of Transportation have partnered to bring the first autonomous vehicle to the city of Gainesville. Community members were invited to a Monday morning ribbon-cutting ceremony and an inaugural test ride of the shuttle, running between the Southwest Third Street parking garage to Innovation Square near Southwest Second Avenue.

We’ve heard it for years: driverless cars are the way of the future. But there’s lots of work to be done before self-driving cars rule the road. Students and faculty at Florida Polytechnic University are trying to solve one of the trickiest problems: how to make a machine driver think like a human, but better.

Elected leaders in Florida want to make this state the most aggressive in the nation for welcoming autonomous vehicles. This will require some major changes in road design and regulations. But probably the biggest change will be in our state of mind. There is a reluctance to turn over the wheel to a mechanical brain, yet statistics show that most crashes are caused by human error, not breakdowns in the vehicles.

The Florida Chamber of Commerce announced Thursday that HNTB Corporation Vice President Beth Kigel will chair its Autonomous Florida Program. As chair, Kigel will work closely with Autonomous Florida Director Christopher Emmanuel and business leaders from across Florida in advocating to make Florida’s business climate ready for the autonomous revolution and the technology development that comes with it.

“Beth brings a wealth of transportation systems expertise to Autonomous Florida. As a champion of Florida’s infrastructure, her collaborative spirit will help ensure Florida becomes the most autonomous-friendly state,” Emmanuel said.

Two advocates of driverless vehicles have argued that Florida has a perfect combination for autonomous vehicles and they predict that 10 to 15 percent of vehicles could be self-driving by 2040.

Florida is on the road to an era of driverless cars with its good weather, popularity as a tourist destination, and demographics. That’s the assessment of two advocates of the technology — one a Palm Beach consultant and the other a state senator from St. Petersburg who says Florida is already a leader in the push toward autonomous vehicles.

JTA has a survey to learn what Jacksonville residents want from its proposed Ultimate Urban Circulator for the Skyway Express.

Traveling by alternate means is part of the theme of this weekend’s “On the Road.”

Some folks may know that the Jacksonville Transportation Authority wants to take its aging Skyway Express into the future with autonomous electric people movers, not only using the overhead pathways that cross downtown and San Marco, but also designate the Bay Street corridor for them initially.

With a fitting beep, doors opened and out stepped local elected officials and executives as confetti rained down over them outside the driverless bus.

The battery-powered driverless shuttle — operated by the mobility company Beep — had safely delivered them to the official opening of the free service, which will shuttle daily between the Laureate Park Village Center and Lake Nona Town Center. The route of about a mile will take about 12 minutes, toting 10 people at 15 mph.

“Tomorrow is here,” said Rasesh Thakkar, senior managing director of Tavistock Development, which created Lake Nona.