Scotland will be the stage The world’s first autonomous bus, near Edinburgh, will start operating next month. Five fully electric autonomous buses will form the 22.5km route, which includes one of the country’s top tourist attractions, the Forth Bridge.
project CAVForth Funded by the British Government and managed by Stagecoach, the UK’s largest coach and coach operator. The project aims to carry around 10,000 passengers per week and establish Scotland as a benchmark in autonomous vehicle technology.
The vehicles are equipped with sensors that allow them to travel at speeds up to 80 km/h on pre-selected roads. The buses will operate at vehicle automation level 4, which means a trained safety driver will be on board but will not need to touch the controls when the vehicle is in autonomous mode.
Although the UK government has yet to allow fully driverless autonomous vehicles to operate, this new technology is expected to revolutionize the transport sector and bring significant benefits to the safety and efficiency of public transport.
The CAVForth project is funded by the Center for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and delivered in partnership with Innovate UK, with an estimated cost of around £6.1 million (about R$38 million). The sum is part of the UK government’s £100 million Smart Mobility Fund, which aims to accelerate the commercialization of autonomous transport technology.
With the launch of self-driving buses next month, Scotland will become a world leader in autonomous transport technology, marking an exciting milestone in the development of the global transport sector.
Similar concepts are found all over the world
Driverless buses are not new to the transport sector. In 2021, a new autonomous electric bus began operating in Málaga, Spain, the first such project in Europe.
In the UK, the Cambridge Connector project, which aims to deploy 13 autonomous electric vehicles across the city, is set to launch next year.
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Perhaps Europe’s largest self-driving car project is “ULTIMO”, which has a budget of more than €55 million and will test autonomous public transport services in three European cities: Geneva, Switzerland; Kronach, Germany; and Oslo, Norway.
Source: Stagecoach
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