It’s not uncommon in dog-eat-dog Texas freeway traffic to think the operator of the vehicle in front of you is either brainless or heartless.

A cabal of state and local agencies is planning to prove you right, teaming up to test autonomous vehicles – when ready – not only on closed campuses but urban and rural roads, including some in Houston.

If all the grandiose plans officials have considered to radically improve the use of technology to keep Houston moving come to pass, one of the city’s most clogged corridors, western Westheimer, could be the test bed for everything from automated buses to traffic lights timed to respond in real-time to changing traffic conditions.

The Texas Automated Vehicle Proving Ground Partnership, announced earlier this month, combines resources from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Transportation Research and Southwest Research Institute to test automated vehicles. The partnership this week said local agencies are also working to ready certain road segments for the testing, eager to start shifting people to self-driving cars and more efficient driverless delivery trucks.

“In the next five years there are going to be more advancements in vehicle technology than there have been in the last 50 years,” Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams said in a statement. “Think about the opportunity to have an automated people mover, lithium battery powered. It could run all day, charge through the night, use clean-energy, and be cheaper.”

Testing will first focus on closed facilities, such as the Texas A&M University System RELLIS Campus, which includes Texas A&M’s Proving Grounds, the University of Texas at Austin campus, and the Southwest Research Institute campus in San Antonio.

The automated vehicles, however, could quickly move into the lane next to you for further testing. In the Houston area, officials with the partnership have identified the Texas Medical Center, high occupancy vehicle lanes maintained by Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Port of Houston as potential live testing locations.

“The closed-course facilities and real-world urban and rural test sites we can offer, including land and seaport applications, and unmanned aircraft systems, provide a variety of environments where automated vehicle challenges can be tested and proven,” said Texas A&M Transportation Institute Director Greg Winfree.

Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and El Paso also are readying for live testing at various locations.

The partnership has applied to be a proving ground for autonomous vehicles, under a pilot program announced last month by Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx.

“We are setting a new foundation for this technology to be safely leveraged and implemented into the coming decades,” Foxx said in announcing the program.

The approved proving grounds will be announced in early 2017, and are set to open by Jan. 1, 2018 at the latest.

The Texas spots, meanwhile, are the first in what could be numerous uses of autonomous vehicles, though none are a certainty. More than three dozen agencies ranging from researchers to city planners gathered Dec. 1-2 for a summit seeking collaborations to improve mobility in Texas.

“The purpose of the summit was to join together as a state to leverage our combined resources and talents to attract new investors for improve mobility,” said Terence Fontaine, executive vice-president of Metro.

The meeting led to the partnership’s formation and work to find locations for testing, as well as the start of regional efforts in Houston to see if the city, county and others such as the Gulf Coast Rail District and Port of Houston businesses can combine resources.

Fontaine said all of the efforts encompass a single goal: Reduce congestion so people and goods can flow more freely around the region. Solutions, however, will come in stages and on multiple fronts to reduce vehicle use, time trips so not everyone is using the roads at the same time and, he added, address “cultural barriers to multi-modalism.”

Metro, which like many transit agencies is dogged by a reputation of inefficiency and crime by some, must attract workers from across the region in various socio-economic classes to effectively deliver service regionally. Some communities are also clamoring for the bike facilities that have come to other neighborhoods, so they can enjoy the same recreational and commuting options of residents in the Heights, Memorial Park area and Braeswood.

Then there’s the challenge of making the roads more efficient and people less reliant on taking the same trips at the same time every work day.

Houston area engineers and government officials are already working on a system, dubbed ConnectSmart. It would push out real-time information to commuters in the hopes they make adjustments to their work trips. By changing when they go to work, the route to the office or how they travel, commuters could reduce dependence on solo vehicle use and improve congestion in the area. The initial system is expected to cost $18 million, with half the money coming from a federal grant secured by the Houston district of the Texas Department of Transportation.

The first step for ConnectSmart will be using it in the The Energy Corridor in western Houston and the central business district downtown. Eventually, Fontaine said officials plan to expand the system to cover the Texas Medical Center and the Westheimer corridor, particularly outside Loop 610.

Local officials, especially Metro, are especially eyeing Westheimer. The 12 miles of road between Loop 610 and Texas 6 – technically part of the state highway system as FM 1093 – is a major thoroughfare and major headache for drivers, with stops and starts because of traffic flow and seemingly ill-timed traffic lights.

Moving buses down the road poses even more challenges for Metro, along what is its busiest bus route and second-largest transit line behind only the Red Line light rail.

Building off the recent discussions, Fontaine said Metro is looking at some initial improvements along Westheimer, such as fewer bus stops. With fewer stops, what riders lose in proximity might be greatly outgained by faster trips if the bus doesn’t stop as so many intersections. Drivers also benefit because it means buses are not stopping and blocking lanes as frequently.

Eventually, Fontaine said Metro will study the merits of offering rapid bus service, preemptive traffic signal timing so buses can avoid frequent stops at red lights and possibly dedicated bus lanes and rapid transit service down Westheimer.

Though years away, Westheimer could be where all the efforts to leverage technology collide, such as with automated buses following a dedicated route where traffic lights respond to approaching vehicles and buses can move more people faster than driving alone.

“We see it as a big opportunity to look at some of those things,” Fontaine said.