, this will be the first time in Europe that a large, autonomous bus is tested in open city traffic. Other countries including Spain have tested such buses in open traffic, but not as an integrated part of the public transit system, said a company press release.
The test project has been a long time in the making. “We have participated in several pilot projects with self-driving buses including the very first, and have since 2018 worked to put in place a project with a larger, self-driving bus,” said Kolumbus CEO Odd Aksland. The project aims to establish whether the use of self-driving buses are a good addition to the urban mobility model. In the long-term, the safety driver will be moved from the bus to an operations center and take responsibility for several buses at the same time.Self-driving technology has come a long way in a short space of time. Many Norwegian cities including Trondheim and Kongsberg have trialed such technology, but tests have been limited to smaller vehicles in relatively quiet areas.
A Kolumbus spokesperson said the combination of the size of the bus, the advanced self-driving technology and the public nature of the test route makes the project one of the world’s most advanced. KPMG placed Norway third in a global ranking of countries’ progress with self-driving solutions. The country is also a world-leader in the development of autonomous maritime solutions. In November 2021, the world's first electric autonomous cargo vessel wasThe full-scale test in Stavanger is part of TrustMe, an ongoing research project in self-driving buses supported by the Research Council of Norway. The project examines how to build confidence in self-driving solutions for public transit.
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