After receiving approval from city officials, Optimus Ride, a developer of self‑driving technologies, will begin using its autonomous vehicles to carry passengers in Boston, according to the Boston Herald.

To start, the vehicles will only carry passengers in the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park in South Boston, where Optimus is based. Optimus has been talking to other Marine Park-based companies about giving rides and getting feedback from their employees.

Ryan Chin, chief executive officer of Optimus Ride, says that a software company called Autodesk has agreed to take part in the rides.

Eventually, the vehicles could be used to help employees of Seaport companies get to work. Chin says that Optimus is not committing to any specific service, but adds that it “seems clear autonomous shuttles could help the Seaport’s transportation issues.”

Chin also says that Optimus is using the Marine Park tests as experiments right now, but that will eventually change.

“We want to treat the Seaport, Ray Flynn area as our experimental playground, to test the technology, engage with users, and eventually some sort of commercial opportunity,” Chin says.

“We’re not committing to any particular commercial service in the Seaport right now, but we are doing extensive public testing on roads, looking at first- and last-mile services and shuttle routes.”

​By receiving approval to carry passengers in its autonomous vehicles, Optimus joins nuTonomy as the only other company in Boston to have such a distinction. Last year, nuTonomy began giving rides to Lyft customers using autonomous vehicles.