£4.35m of Innovate UK funding awarded to operator and its partners in scheme; work will start soon
2019 will see work start on the first trial to deliver autonomous passenger-carrying full-sized buses in the UK. Five such self-driving Alexander Dennis (ADL) Enviro200s will ultimately be operated by Stagecoach East Scotland.
Government body Innovate UK has awarded £4.35m to Stagecoach and its partners ADL, Edinburgh Napier University, mobility specialist ESP Group, technology company Fusion Processing, Transport Scotland and the University of West of England.
Additional investment has been provided by ADL, ESP Group, Fusion Processing, Stagecoach and Transport Scotland.
Enviro200s coming
The 11.8m Enviro200s will run between Fife and Edinburgh across the Forth Bridge via its dedicated public transport corridor. Stagecoach estimates that they could deliver an estimated 10,000 passenger journeys per week.
They will be autonomous to Level 4 standard, which means that a human driver must be on board during any journey, in line with UK regulations. Work on the vehicles is expected to begin in Q2 2019 at ADL’s Guildford plant, with an entry to service date planned by 2021.
The buses will observe both on-road and hard shoulder running between the Ferrytoll park-and-ride site and Edinburgh Park train and tram interchange, operating every 20 minutes.
According to the Society of Automotive Engineers, which has detailed six categories of autonomous capability, Level 4 requires that the vehicle is able to accelerate, brake, steer, monitor the road and respond to events that occur there without intervention. It will notify the driver when conditions are safe for autonomy and he or she then switches it into that mode.
In depot autonomy sooner
Additionally, Stagecoach says that it expects the first bus capable of self-driving within a depot to be ready for use “at the beginning of 2019.” Work on the Enviro200 is currently underway at ADL’s Guildford factory.
In the short term, it will operate autonomously to carry out movements such as parking and shunting, which the operator says will improve safety and space utilisation within the depot.
