Robot buses – a revolution in public transport?

12 July 2018

They are already being trialled in Bad Birnbach in Bavaria, at Frankfurt airport and on the EUREF campus in Berlin: autonomous buses that take you to your destination without a human driver at the wheel. Railway and transport operators alike set great store by the automation of public transport. If all goes to plan, driverless means of transport will make it possible to run services more frequently and encourage more people to make the switch to public transport. The second part of our series Mobility in Cities sheds light on how this could work.

The future of public transportation is sunny yellow, looks like a ski gondola on wheels, goes by the name of Emily, and drives without a steering wheel. Emily is an autonomous minibus, model EZ10, from the French company EasyMile. Right now, the cute electric bus is waiting across from the solar charging station in front of the entrance to the Innovation Center for Mobility and Social Change (InnoZ) for its next trip. The logo of the Berlin Transport Authority (BVG) is emblazoned on its side. Right next to it: the logo of Ioki, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn that handles new mobility services beyond rail. Inside, passengers have already settled into the six seats. Then the driver gets in, holding a joystick controller that allows him to get Emily back on track in an emergency. With a turn of the key, he starts the engine, the sliding door closes, and Emily hums to life: past pretty brick facades, past countless charging stations where electric cars recharge their batteries, and past the old gasometer, from which Günther Jauch used to broadcast his political talk show into living rooms every Sunday until three years ago.

Driving across the EUREF campus in Berlin-Schöneberg feels a bit like riding a miniature train at an amusement park. That’s no surprise, explains Frank Hunsicker, who oversees the project as program manager for “Automated Driving” at InnoZ. That’s because Emily travels on virtual tracks; her route is pre-programmed. Along the way, GPS and sensors equipped with lasers and radar help the bus navigate. They generate a three-dimensional image of the surroundings, which is then compared with the predefined route. The bus’s speed also feels more like a leisurely outing than a quest for efficiency. Emily chugs across the grounds at a leisurely ten kilometers per hour. “Like a very cautious driver,” comments one of the passengers—with emphasis on “very.” The leisurely driving style is due not only to legal requirements but also to the speed limit on the EUREF campus. Technically, Emily could reach speeds of up to 45 km/h.

In addition to legal requirements, the shuttle’s leisurely pace is also due to the speed limit on the EUREF campus.

With a maximum speed of 15 km/h, the EasyMile shuttle in Bad Birnbach, Lower Bavaria, also moves at a rather sedate pace. Since late October 2017, it has been connecting the spa town’s thermal baths with the town center and is the first robotic shuttle in Germany to operate on public roads. Deutsche Bahn, which launched the pilot project, gave a positive interim assessment in May 2018. Since the project began, 10,000 passengers have been transported approximately 5,000 kilometers without incident. Another vehicle is scheduled to be added in late summer 2018, and the next generation of shuttles—which are better equipped to handle inclines—will soon be deployed as well.

Railway companies, public transit agencies, and researchers at InnoZ have high hopes for these robotic buses. In resort towns like Bad Birnbach or in urban pedestrian zones, these small, quiet, and eco-friendly electric buses will soon be able to comfortably transport people to places that city buses have not been able to reach until now. Fundamentally, the robot buses are not intended to replace the existing public transportation system in cities, but rather to complement it: by shortening the distance between the front door and the bus stop, they bridge the so-called “last mile” gap.

According to project manager Hunsicker, this is not only intended to open up new mobility options for seniors and others who have difficulty walking. Overall, the goal is to encourage more and more people to switch to buses and trains, combining the convenience of a private car with the efficiency of public transportation—especially in suburban areas, where buses and trains run less frequently and the distance to the nearest stop is greater. However, experts like Hunsicker see great potential for the use of robotic shuttles, particularly in rural regions where a car is currently indispensable for getting reliably from A to B. “Here, it would be possible to create a whole new level of accessibility or even to once again offer public transit that is worthy of the name,” explains Hunsicker. After all, especially in rural areas, the driver is often the biggest cost factor in operating a bus route.

If Frank Hunsicker and his colleagues at InnoZ have their way, passengers will soon be able to order the bus “on demand”—simply using an app to call it to wherever they need it, rather than having to stick to fixed departure times and routes. For passengers, this means greater flexibility; for transit companies, it means better utilization of their fleet. The app for this is already being developed. An initial test is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2018.

The robot bus at InnoZ is also being prepared for the use of inductive charging technology. At the end of shifts or during breaks, the vehicles could autonomously navigate to parking spaces equipped with induction plates—such as those installed in the ground at the solar charging station in front of the institute—to recharge. This reduces the need for staff and makes the operation of autonomous shuttle fleets more efficient. In the near future, Emily is also set to leave the private grounds of the EUREF campus and venture into Berlin’s city traffic. The necessary approval for this is currently being prepared. First, technical inspection agencies such as TÜV will scrutinize the robot bus’s operational safety and traffic behavior. The shuttle’s approval is always tied to a specific route on which it is permitted to operate, Hunsicker explains regarding the complex process. If the authorities give Emily the green light, the shuttle could be used, for example, as a feeder service to Berlin’s Südkreuz station.

In Finland, testing of the buses in urban traffic began back in 2016. This was rendered possible by a loophole in Finnish law which means that neither driver nor steering wheel are mandatory. In Hamburg, too, autonomous buses will soon be trundling along public roads. A bus testing programme which is scheduled to last a number of years will start in 2019. 

The infrastructure which will communicate with the shuttles is currently under construction on the roads. Sensors affixed to streetlights will tell the autonomous vehicles exactly what is happening in the traffic around the next corner. Networked traffic lights will let the robot bus know when it can safely cross over a junction without any intervention on the part of a human back-up driver. In the Swiss town of Sion, where robot buses have been meandering through the centre since 2016, such smart traffic lights are currently being installed. This will both enhance safety and, at the end of the day, increase the speed at which the shuttles can move around. 2021 has been set as the date by which the buses should be flitting through the port city of Hamburg at 50 km/h – this is planned by the Transport company Hamburger Hochbahn.

However, some technical obstacles to this are yet to be overcome. In winter, snow-covered roads might make it harder for the sensors to guide the buses, explains project manager Hunsicker. Finnish company Sensible4 is already working on a solution to this problem.

However, as the test drives have also demonstrated, the sensors don’t always take kindly to water falling from the sky. The onset of drizzle over the campus doesn’t bother Emily in the least. But then the heavens open, and the bus slows down and finally comes to a stop. For safety reasons we now have to go back under manual control, the back-up driver explains as he reaches for his joystick. But as suddenly as it began, the rain stops, and Emily heads off again with a satisfied hum. “Let’s face it, the technology is still in its infancy and will continue to develop,” Frank Hunsicker explains. Sensor systems are being overhauled, and the autonomous buses are learning with each test. And, unlike human drivers, they will never fall prey to cockiness or fall asleep at the wheel.