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Self-driving buses hit the streets of Helsinki
Helsinki, the capital of Finland, has become one of the first major cities to offer autonomous public transportation on its city streets, as several autonomous buses have just been rolled out as part of a new test program.
The buses are designed by EasyMile, a joint venture between French auto maker Ligier Group and Indian robotics firm Robosoft Technologies. EasyMile’s vehicles are small electric shuttles that can carry around nine passengers at a speed of 10 kilometers-per-hour, which is roughly as fast as an average person can jog. The vehicles will be used as a last-mile transportation solution, shuttling passengers between a train station and a nearby bus stop.
“This is actually a really big deal right now. There’s no more than a handful of these kinds of street traffic trials taking place, if that,” Harri Santamala, the leader of the test project and a project manager at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, told Finnish news publication YLE.
Obviously, a bus that can only carry a handful of passengers at the rate of a steady jog will not be revolutionizing public transportation any time soon, but Santamala said that the goal of the test program is not to create a one size fits all solution.
“Their purpose is to supplement but not to replace [current buses],” he explained. “For example the goal could be to use them as a feeder service for high-volume bus or metro traffic, like Kutsuplus. In other words the mini-bus would know when the connecting service is coming and it would get you there on time,”
Finland has become a popular testing ground for autonomous vehicles thanks to its traffic laws, which surprisingly do not require a driver to be present in a vehicle.
“The current strategy of the Finnish Ministry of Transportation and Communication’s allows testing of autonomous vehicles in the actual urban environments,” EasyMile explained in the original announcement for the Helsinki project. “This strategy gives Finland unique piloting possibilities, as legislation allows this type of piloting only in a few countries.”
Image courtesy of EasyMile via Twitter
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