In the ever-continuing saga of autonomous vehicle testing (AV), Lyft just notified the press that they would test their vehicles in the US military base; GoMentum Station in California. This is a 5,000-acre site that was once the Concord Naval Weapons Station military base. While both Uber and Waymo have already gone through this phase and are testing their vehicles on public roads. Lyft has to first go through a private testing phase and only after they complete this level successfully will they be allowed to make trial runs on public roads around the US.
The vehicles that will be tested on this base will come from Lyft's Level 5 Engineering Center in Palo Alto. This center is working under Lyft's Open Platform Initiative in collaboration with Land Rover, Jaguar, General Motors, and Waymo.
The new partnership between Lyft and GoMentum Station, will improve the efficiency of their research and help Lyft finalize this phase quickly. Luc Vincent, Lyft's VP of Engineering told the press that by partnering with GoMentum, their research would enable testing the cars in a secure location and in an efficient way. According to the GoMentum site: "GoMentum Station in Concord, California is the nation's largest secure testing facility for autonomous and connected vehicle technology." GoMentum is owned and operated by The Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA). CCTA is a public agency formed by Contra Costa voters in 1988. It was founded as an effort to manage the county's transportation sales tax program and oversee countywide transportation planning efforts.