Autonomous buses will soon be a reality for Scottish passengers as the government recently announced that self-driving buses will be shuttling the Forth Road Bridge in Scotland by 2021.
It is expected to carry half a million passenger a year and around £4.35m is being pumped by the Department of Business into the £6m project which will have five single decker buses that will carry 42 passengers plying on a 14-mile journey.
Fife with Edinburgh park will be linked by the vehicle and will provide a train journey of 10 minutes or less to Waverley station in the Scottish capital.
The weekly ridership is expected to be 10,000 and the bus service will be operating every 20 minutes. In 2017 the Queensferry Crossing opened and the 1964 Forth Road Bridge was restricted to buses and taxis.
Each vehicle will have a driver on board and the bus drivers do not have to look for alternative employment in order to comply with the safety legislation.
Since 1987 in east London driver less trains have been operating on the Docklands Light Railway, however there is a massive difference in trains running on tracks on a closed system and buses driving on the open road.
There are sensors in the autonomous vehicles to detect the other road users and has control system that responds by changing speed and direction.
There are new plans for a private hire pilot scheme in the London borough of Greenwich. A fleet of 15 self-driving Land Discovery vehicles will be deployed by the Addison Lee.
The Tube station will be initially linked at the North Greenwich Station and then transport hubs in the borough that do not currently have a link will be connected.‘A restricted on-demand service’ will be the third stage finally aiming at the go anywhere in borough service.”
Details about project ServCity which will offer ‘a premium mobility service across four Greater London boroughs’ is yet to be planned.
The public will experience the future for themselves from 2021 and the self-driving cars will revolutionise the way we move goods and people around the UK.
