Johnson County will be one of the first places to open its roads to test of self-driving vehicles.

The county has been working with the National Advanced Driving Simulator and the University of Iowa Transportation and Vehicle Safety Program to allow local roads to be utilized by a range of companies to test their driverless cars. The Transportation and Vehicle Safety Program is under the umbrella of the Public Policy Center at the UI.

Dan McGehee, the director of the center, has worked on automated-cars research for 20 years at the UI. He said the allotted courses for the automated cars could potentially help advance research in the area.

“The main headline is that 93 percent of car crashes are driver error. This year alone 25,000 will be involved in fatal accidents,” McGehee said. “People are driving more, and that causes you to be exposed to more crashes, with employment rates on the rise this leads to more accidents as well.”

The Public Policy Center has been in discussion with the Iowa City Airport Commission to use parts of the airport’s old runway as courses for the vehicles. As of now, a prototype Volvo is being used to test current software.

McGehee said the purpose of using the closed portion of the airport’s runway would be to avoid traffic while doing the test-drives. The companies will also be able to set up targets and inflatable pedestrians to simulate real life experiences.

The National Advanced Driving Simulator works on projects in all aspects of driver safety and has recently gotten involved with research on automated cars.

Chris Schwarz, a research engineer for the National Advanced Driving Simulator has been working on automated cars since 2013. He said the simulator allows for anyone off the street to drive it without having to adapt to the system.

“The simulator is designed to model and recreate any grand vehicle from cabs, trucks and other kinds of cars,” he said. “Individuals sit in a real car with 360 degrees of visuals around them. The entire dome moves and creates motion cues to test driver safety.”

Sabrina Muell, a student at the University of Iowa was given the opportunity to test-drive an automated car with her family. She said the experience was unlike anything she had ever encountered.

“It was weird, because you’re so used to being in control when in a car, and you had absolutely none,” she said. “The ride was smooth and relaxing, you didn’t have to do anything because the car did it all for you.”

McGehee said he believes that continued research is necessary in able to work on safety for drivers.