Norway’s Self-Driving Bus: a Template for Public Transport?

Trondheim, Norway - 21 September 2020
Photo by Applied Autonomy
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In this article, Alice takes a closer look at Norway’s autonomous bus and asks:

What are the self-driving bus’s capabilities?
Why this route?
Is the future of public transport autonomous?
It’s the first of its kind in Europe and testing is already yielding positive results. So, will driverless public transport become the norm? And can we expect to hitch a ride on a driverless bus outside of Trondheim any time soon?
Main picture

Public transport. Often the mere mention of it is accompanied by groans and laments over long travel times and needlessly complex routes. But when it comes to autonomous technology, vehicles which can carry multiple passengers to multiple destinations have huge potential for growth. Plus, with on-demand hop-on/hop-off services rather than the expense of personal ownership, more of us might get the chance to go for a ride with no driver.

Self-driving transport of this sort is currently being tested in Norway and even Prime Minister Erna Solberg has had a go on the revolutionary bus. Now being piloted in Trondheim, Norway’s on-demand driverless bus is already showing that flexible, autonomous travel on a public scale can play a role in our future. It might just make the concept of public transport more attractive too.

Read the full article here