On the road to autonomous vehicles Dear Editor, The future of Jamaican transportation is shifting like sunlight over the Blue Mountains — gradual, golden, and brimming with possibility. Beneath the asphalt of progress and the hum of innovation lies a quiet revolution, driven not by wheels alone, but by signals from the stars. As satellite broadband unfurls across land and sea and roadways are reimagined through ambitious projects like the Shared Prosperity through Accelerated Improvement to our Road Network (SPARK) Programme, Jamaica inches closer to a dream once thought distant — self-driving vehicles. Whereas connectivity once faded into the misty hills and ocean spray, new players like Starlink and Amber Group now beam signals from the heavens. Their mini-satellites orbit silently, weaving a digital net that links cars, boats, and devices even in the island’s most hidden corners. Amber Group CEO Dushyant Savadia sees this clearly: vehicles that glide through valleys and cruise across coastlines without losing signal, no longer tethered by fragile terrestrial networks. For a country long beset by patchy rural coverage, this marks a pivotal moment. With motor vehicle theft approaching $1 billion in value by March 2025, real-time tracking and remote security through satellite broadband offer powerful shields. As ReadyNet and other satellite providers join the fray, the idea of autonomous vehicles begins to shimmer on the horizon. Self-driving cars, once the stuff of science fiction, could soon whisper across Jamaican roads, drawing guidance from cloud-based intelligence. Satellite broadband might not yet provide perfect latency, but it lays the groundwork. Still, no smart car can drive where roads crumble or vanish. Enter the SPARK; a sweeping effort to renew Jamaica’s roads, not just with fresh asphalt, but with purpose. It envisions highways designed for tomorrow, detailed with maps, marked with precision, and managed in partnership with