Driverless buses will soon be on the roads

Driverless busesOslo.Driverless buses.Photo : Terje Pedersen / NTB scanpix

After a successful test run of a driverless bus in a closed lane at Forus, outside Stavanger, parliament will decide when the next phase of the process will kick in.

 

‘We’ve finished the first of two phases of the project, which means that we’ve had nearly 300 hours of testing the vehicle.


Many, and various scenarios have been successfully performed without intervention of drivers’, said general manager, Linn Terese Marken, of the Forus Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) to the Stavanger Aftenblad newspaper.

The driverless buses project is a collaboration between Kolumbus, Forus Næringspark, and Forus PRT. The first phase showed that weather conditions could cause some challenges, which have now been addressed by the bus supplier.

Currently, driverless buses aren’t permitted in traffic, but in June the government presented a bill to parliament that will permit testing of self-propelled vehicles.

When the bill has been approved by parliament, phase two of the project will be put into effect. This will involve
testing of a so-called ‘pilot on board’  short route, where the bus passes three crossings, mainly after driving on
pedestrian and bicycle paths.

The  phase after that will be testing in open traffic, though still with a ‘pilot on board’.

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today