Automated Buses Are Here, Now We Have To Decide How They Will Reshape Our Cities

When a short trial of an autonomous bus first ran in Helsinki, Finland, in 2016, most riders saw it as a novelty. But by this fall, if you work in downtown Helsinki, you might start riding the city’s robo-bus as part of your daily commute. The city is one of a handful to launch a longer-term trial of the technology, running along a regular bus route.

“If we want to get real data, we need to have it in an area where the same people will be every day,” says Harri Santamala, who directs a smart mobility program at Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and is coordinating Sohjoa, a joint project that is testing the autonomous shuttles. “So we are now aiming toward the local people, feeding them to the tram or metro lines… We need strong, long-term experiences of how people will really use an autonomous bus, and what happens when the novelty value of the bus wears off.”

There are challenges, particularly from other drivers. “The machine always follows traffic rules, and people often don’t,” says Santamala. Drivers don’t yet know how to interact with the vehicles.

Cities also have to figure out how their infrastructure should adapt. An autonomous bus could potentially drop off passengers directly where they need to go, like Uber, but like Uber, that might also require new space for stops. Roads might work better with a new lane for the buses. Technology like traffic lights could be connected directly with the buses’ operating system.

“Knowing this technology is progressing, we definitely want to be involved with its development and deployment so that we can learn from it, what may impact our roadway planning, our infrastructure–essentially, we’ll provide the ecosystem for these vehicles to operate,” says Wadsworth. “For these vehicles to be a true benefit I think it needs to be connected to our traffic signal system; it needs to be connected to our infrastructure.”

The technology is still developing, and the trials will help manufacturers refine how the vehicles deal with challenges like weather (lidar, a laser system that acts as a sensor, struggles in snow, for example). But Navya, a French company that manufactures the electric shuttle that is being tested in Las Vegas, at the University of Michigan, and elsewhere, believes that the technology is essentially ready, and cities are also ready to begin testing it en masse.

“I think in 2018 we’ll have 50 shuttles running in the U.S.–that’s our ‘pessimistic’ objective,” says Pierre Elliot Petit, head of operations for Navya North America. “The optimistic objective is to have 100-plus shuttles running in 2018… What we can see with the RFPs is that people want to have long-term pilots. At first, the idea was to have a pilot for a week or two weeks. Now people are thinking because the technology is getting better and better, to have a pilot running for a year.” Navya plans to open a new factory in Michigan later this year to serve the growing North American market.

If it’s raining and cold outside and the robo-bus knows that you’re headed for an outdoor train station–but you’re going to miss the train–it could automatically take you to the next station so you could stay on the warm bus, for example. And these small adjustments to make public transportation less painless could get more people out of cars.

“I think it will help people leave their cars outside cities,” says Petit, adding, “It’s a little like when Uber and Lyft deployed their technology, people were like, ‘How can I use that?’ Then it was like your private driver from point A to point B. Then you started to share the [Uber]. And now you will share a shuttle.”