The City of Sacramento, California has signed a deal with Phantom Auto to test autonomous vehicles in the city.

The vehicles will be monitored by remote “drivers” sitting at computers in Silicon Valley, where Phantom Auto is based. The people monitoring the vehicles will be able to take control of the vehicle if its on-board computer system can’t figure out how to navigate the road.

“I view this as another signature moment for our city,” says Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, via the Sacramento Bee. “It is a clear sign we are willing to step up and show the state and the country that we want to be on the forefront of new technologies.”

Over the next few months, Phantom Auto will check Sacramento streets to make sure driverless cars can maintain continuous wireless connections to the people who will watch over them remotely.

Once that process is complete, Phantom Auto and the city of Sacramento plan to invite autonomous car companies to use streets in the city as testing grounds for their technologies.

According to Elliot Katz, co-founder of Phantom Auto, remote human monitors will play an important role in the autonomous vehicle world for years to come, being that sophisticated computers, radar, cameras and lidar on these vehicles are almost certain to run into some road situations that they won’t know how to handle.

Autonomous vehicles can usually be programmed to stop or pull over in these situations, but Katz says that remote operators can instead take over and make a safer decision.

“We believe you will always need a human in the loop,” Katz says. “There are so many oddball scenarios multiple times a day. (A computer) won’t react the same way a human will react.”

Current state regulations require any car operated on California streets without a person in the driver’s seat to be monitored electronically by someone who has the ability to take control.

To do this type of testing in California, a company must first obtain a permit from the Department of Motor Vehicles. A DMV representative says that two autonomous vehicle companies have applied to obtain remote-operations permits, but no permits have been issued as of yet.

Katz says that by “mapping” out Sacramento streets and assuring continuous wireless connections, the city could make itself an attractive place for autonomous vehicle companies to conduct the next round of testing — where no one will be in the car.

Katz adds that the electronic mapping of streets in Sacramento “is going to make Sacramento a pretty attractive location. Companies we do business with are very interested in the fact we are laying down this safety structure.”

According to city innovation officer Louis Stewart, Phantom Auto will initially test two designated routes provided by the city. One of those routes loops past City Hall, the state Capitol and the convention center, while the other will link the Sacramento State campus to the 65th Street light-rail station. The university is looking into the possibility of operating driverless shuttles.

Sacramento hopes to use the downtown route soon for a few days to show certain people, such as legislators, how the technology works, Stewart notes.

Phantom Auto is expected to do its wireless map testing for six months, and after that, it is expected to invite companies to Sacramento for testing.