Quote:
Originally Posted by aberdeen5698
I'm about as skeptical of autonomous vehicles as anyone, but the tech will arrive sooner or later and buses may well be among the first to benefit from it because their fixed-route nature is a big advantage in developing a workable solution. Also, the advanced sensors (LIDAR, RADAR, etc) which are most likely to result in tech that works well are a lot smaller percentage of the total cost of a bus than they are of a car.
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It already exists, and is very close to rollout in a number of cities. There have been Chinese trial systems since 2017. There are now fleets of autonomous buses operating at Level 4, and in some cases trialing Level 5 in at least four cities, although generally, still with an operator (doing nothing). Hamburg has an autonomous shuttle service that has been running for a while, and Berlin expects one to be operating in 2027. Stavanger in Norway has had a long term trial, and is expecting to go into normal service soon. Japan is trialing autonomous buses to overcome their labour shortage problem. Seoul is trialing an autonomous night bus service, and Singapore have trial service with two different systems.
There are autonomous transit options being tested in the US. California legislation requires an operator, even if they're not driving, but there are drverless shuttle systems already operating in Arizona and Florida. The Arizona example, operated by May Mobility, initially outside Phoenix, is using driverless minivans, specifically in areas where bus service isn't viable. Waymo are also offering a driverless service in Downtown Phoenix to a group of 'Trusted Testers', having been operating in suburban Chandler, Mesa, Tempe, and Gilbert since 2017, (not without the odd glitch, as you'd expect). In Florida there's a 500,000 sq ft manufacturing plant under construction for driverless shuttles to be built by HOLON, part of a European group, that will be operated by Beep, a Florida operator. That starts vehicle production in less than a year's time.
We're behind the curve here. There are cities in China that have had all battery electric fleets of thousands of vehicles - Shenzhen had 13,000 operating in 2018. They now have 20 driverless buses currently trialing 4 routes. Autonomous operations may follow here, eventually, once we've electrified fleets.
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