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23.06.2017
Smart Shuttle Sion

One year after the inauguration of the world’s first SmartShuttles on public roads, PostBus and its Mobility Lab partners can look back on a positive launch. The two SmartShuttles covered more than 4,500 kilometres.

PostBus is one of the first operators worldwide to carry passengers on public roads. Since 23 June 2016, the two SmartShuttles were in operation for 312 days throughout the year. They have carried more than 21,500 people across Sion city centre, including several thousand who have come especially from other parts of Switzerland and from abroad.

The project managers regularly ask the passengers about their level of acceptance of this new means of transport. The assessment is not linked to age: many of the passengers aged 55 and over are enthusiastic and enquire about when and where the SmartShuttles will be used. We also note that the under 20s spontaneously board the vehicle and travel quite naturally as if it were a traditional Postbus. 

Badly parked cars as a challenge
Even if this technology is already highly developed, the use of self-driving buses is still in its infancy. Their installation and use is a laborious process which must be closely monitored. The partners concerned benefit from these lessons on a daily basis. The attendants keep a precise journal and record any necessary interventions they make. From time to time, they need to avoid obstacles such as badly parked vehicles in manual mode. These are the main causes of interventions, accounting for 80% of the cases.

An incident occurred in September 2016 when one of the two SmartShuttles collided with the open tailgate of a parked delivery vehicle at a height of about 2.20 m. The two vehicles involved suffered only minor damage. The operational test of the two SmartShuttles was immediately suspended for a period of two weeks. When they were put back on the road again, PostBus and Navya, the vehicle manufacturer, had made a series of small technical and organizational adjustments. For example, the safety margin on corners had been increased, thereby enabling the vehicles to react in a more sensitive manner if an obstacle were encountered and to stop quickly. The lessons learnt from this incident could be utilized in a constructive way and are part and parcel of an innovative project of this kind.

Navya, the vehicle manufacturer, and the monitoring entity, the fleet management software developer BestMile, collect and manage valuable information concerning the availability of the shuttles, their location and the condition of the sensors. As such, the 3D map which serves as a real navigational map for the shuttle, has been adjusted several times. Based on the map, the SmartShuttles record a route that they can follow as if they were on virtual rails. In parallel, from a scientific point of view, researchers at the EPFL are testing and improving the traffic and fleet management algorithms of the automated shuttle fleet.

International interest in self-driving buses
The SmartShuttle has also been presented at exhibitions, for example in one of the halls at the CeBIT fair in Hanover, in Paris, at a public transport fair or on the roads of the Principality of Monaco during the EVER trade fair. The SmartShuttle has seen some 20,000 additional passengers on these occasions. The self-driving buses thus also contribute to making Sion, Valais and Switzerland development and experimentation hubs for innovative technologies. Through this pilot operation, the partners involved also help create new jobs in Switzerland in the high-tech sphere.

Extending the route
The Mobility Lab partners want to provide passengers using these self-driving shuttles with added value and thus extend the network within the city of Sion. At present, the project leaders are working with their partners and the authorities concerned to study the option of extending and altering the route with a view to incorporating SmartShuttles into the overall mobility chain. The SmartShuttles will thus meet one of the stated objectives of PostBus: that of completing and enhancing the transport network in the last mile. The transport company, the City of Sion and the Canton of Valais are also exploring the option of prolonging the test beyond the completion date initially scheduled for the end of October 2017. The aim is to make the system more flexible and to use other options to increase the benefits for passengers, for example with a bus “on demand” function.

This pioneering project will continue to run until at least 31 October 2017.

(SK)

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