These buses are capable of traveling at up to 50 mph (80 km/h), and they will travel along a predetermined 14-mile (23 km) route that involves crossing the famous Forth Road Bridge. The journey runs between the Ferrytoll park and ride in Fife on the north of the Firth of Forth estuary and the Edinburgh Park train and tram interchange in Scotland’s capital city on the south of the water.
The buses are fully autonomous, but each bus will have a safety driver monitoring the system and ready to take control. A second employee, known as the bus captain, will help customers board the bus and buy tickets.
The presence of two operatives appears to defeat the whole point of introducing autonomous tech, but it’s likely that the ‘driver’ will be jettisoned once the buses have proven themselves reliable and passengers have become used to the idea of a machine doing the work.
The company claims that because the human driver will only step in if really necessary, the autonomous bus should be safer because it has 360? vision, can react faster, see better in bad weather, and won’t get tired or distracted or take risks.
The adoption of autonomous public transportation could transform the future of public transportation and could pave the way for similar programs across the globe. While there are already driverless taxis operating in the U.S., the adoption of autonomous technology in long-distance trucking and public transportation vehicles is expected to occur before private passenger vehicles.
Source: Carscoops
