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UK’s first full-sized autonomous bus takes to the roads of Scotland

• hanoz 4y ago
  I'm interested to know how a full time job of sitting doing nothing at all except be ready to drive a bus full of people at a moment's notice works out.
  • iinnPP 4y ago
    With the addition of knowing you are helping to train the permanent replacement as well.
  • LAC-Tech 4y ago
    Rail transport has those kind of jobs already, don't they?
    • matthewmacleod 4y ago
      Not really. There is very limited use of “driverless” trains on the mainline network, and almost all trains are manually driven. Many of the London tube lines do use ATO though.
  • dazc 4y ago
    I used to take a dialy bus ride in Spain where the driver would have an animated conversation with some of the regular passengers for the entire journey. I would have felt a lot safer if the bus was taking care of the actual driving.
• fredley 4y ago
  The busses will have a safety driver on board, but apparently they expect they will not need to take control at all normally. It will be interesting to see (if possible) how much this holds up in reality.
  • squishy47 4y ago
    no chance if it's on the country roads.
    • revertmean 4y ago
      "five single-deck autonomous buses operating at SAE Level 4 over the Forth Road Bridge between Ferrytoll Park and Ride in Fife and the Edinburgh Park Train and Tram interchange."
  • saddlerustle 4y ago
    No chance, the company providing the software seems firmly at the 'tech demo' stage and mostly looks like a grift for government grants.
• Markoff 4y ago
  Is this test ride cheaper for the Scots considering higher risk?
  • chrisseaton 4y ago
    What risk is there to the passengers?
• ellen364 4y ago
  Last year I got to ride an automated shuttle bus as part of a trial in Cambridge. That had an extremely short route and was very much a trial, with a small number of pre-booked tickets available.[0] Sounds like the Scottish trial is much further along, which is great to hear. [0] https://www.greatercambridge.org.uk/smart/autonomous-vehicles https://www.greatercambridge.org.uk/smart/autonomous-vehicle...
  • blibble 4y ago
    for some reason Cambridge county council is obsessed with buses it ripped up a perfectly good railway line (against the wish of Cambridge city council) and replaced it with guided buses the journey that took 40 minutes in the 1900s now takes 90 minutes
• JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  This is how to roll out autonomous vehicles - on known routes with a published schedule.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• gbtwells 4y ago
  • t_mann 4y ago
    Account created: 6 mins ago Posted: 4 mins ago Didn't want to use your main account for this?
    • brigandish 4y ago
      Throwaway accounts are common, and considering they're attracting downvotes it seems like it was a good choice.
    • dazc 4y ago
      Whatever comment you make about Scotland, good or bad, someone will be offended.
    • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      If you don't want to have homeless people set uo tents on the streets its virtue signalling. If you are also wealthy you are a champaign socialist, becase socialists should be poor. If you are are poor and socialist, then you are envious of rich people. You just can't win
• jack_riminton 4y ago
  Apparently it uses a combination of radar, lidar and cameras https://www.cavforth.com/automated-vehicle-systems/ https://www.cavforth.com/automated-vehicle-systems/ and presumably a lot of hand-crafted code for the route
• mellosouls 4y ago
  a bus ‘Captain’ who will move around the saloon, talking to passengers about the service and answering any questions they may have, demonstrating what a future service night feel like... They use to call these "bus conductors" before they sacked them all to save money. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_conductor https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_conductor
  • seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    They weren’t so much sacked as they were made obsolete by technology and rising productivity. You could still find bus conductors in China even just 10 years ago where they still made sense a bit (if only to collect fares).
    • mellosouls 4y ago
      Yes, I included the link for more useful context, but ultimately I think it comes down to the same thing.
    • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      Nice doublespeak
    • Neekerer 4y ago
      Many busses still have them in China
    • pkphilip 4y ago
      We still have them here in India
      • midasuni 4y ago
        Last time I was in Delhi (about 5 years ago) there were still elevator operators. Not only completely useless to me as a user, but also taking up space preventing people getting in when it’s busy.
        • 4y ago
• blutack 4y ago
  I had a chat with a DLR "passenger service agent" a few weeks ago (DLR, or Docklands Light Railway being a "fully automated" light rail system in London). He had opened the driving console at the front and was sitting there, I asked if there was a fault or something that meant they were operating in reversion mode (PSAs can drive the trains in certain failure cases). He said DLR introduced a policy many years ago where after 8pm or so (maybe just on Fri/Sat night?) the PSA needs to sit at the open drivers console ready to smack the emergency stop in case of people on the tracks. Before then it's optional, but some PSAs like to do it anyway in case "their train" hits someone. Not really much point to this but I thought it was interesting how the PSAs are effectively put in a position of responsibility for the actions of the autonomous vehicle but presumably are not compensated the same as an active(?) driver would be. Maybe a lot of the desire to move to "autonomous" (or really just more automated if it requires a safety driver) is a workaround for union wages by reclassifying drivers as new made up things. Presumably like a DLR these buses will always require a human to take responsibility in case of crash, accident, fire etc - but this way for arbitrary reasons you can pay less!
  • avianlyric 4y ago
    > Not really much point to this but I thought it was interesting how the PSAs are effectively put in a position of responsibility for the actions of the autonomous vehicle but presumably are not compensated the same as an active(?) driver would be. This is an interesting question. Most drivers on the underground aren’t active drivers at. I think every deep level tube line, except the Bakerloo, is autonomous, and the trains can’t be driven manually in normal operations because a human driver can’t react fast enough to continuous adjustments that are sent to train. Adjustments that are needed to safely operate the tube system at the frequency and close follow distance or achieves during peak. Instead the only things a tube driver does is check the doors before closing them, instructing the train to depart, and hitting the emergency stop if something goes wrong. They probably do get paid more than PSA, but I know they get extra compensation due to amount of time they work underground. I do want what level of liability a PSA is exposed to in that position. Presumably they would be in trouble if they were obviously not paying attention during the evening hours. But assuming they’re playing in their phone, I suspect they have little to no liability at all in the event of an incident. But I suspect that the emotional toll if “their” train hit someone would be high, regardless of their responsibilities. > Maybe a lot of the desire to move to "autonomous" (or really just more automated if it requires a safety driver) is a workaround for union wages by reclassifying drivers as new made up things. TfL actually have no desire to automate existing lines. The costs involved are astronomical, the saving minimal, and service improvements almost non-existent. For TfL there number one priority is improving capacity, and the biggest blocker to capacity on the underground isn’t drivers, it’s trains, signalling systems, and above all dwell time in stations. The signalling systems place a hard cap on maximum trains per hour, and the existing systems haven’t performed as well as hoped (it should be mentioned that these systems were cutting edge when installed, TfL tech tends to be on the absolute bleeding edge of metro technology, but the problem is fundamentally harder to solve than original expected), and dwell time (the time spent in stations getting people on and off the trains) his hard to reduce much further, without re-engineering trains and stations to increase the number of doors and platform crowding. Central government has been pushing the automation angle because it’s a “simple” solution to TfL finance problems. But as usual the problem is vastly more complex than that, and the “simple” solution is only good because it feel intuitively correct to public that doesn’t understand the actual problems TfL faces. London reconnections has a number of fantastic articles covering all this: https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/driverless-trains-piccadilly/ https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/driverless-trains-p... https://www.londonreconnections.com/2020/tfl-the-impossible-finances-of-fighting-a-pandemic/ https://www.londonreconnections.com/2020/tfl-the-impossible-...
• dxuh 4y ago
  You need to keep the bus "captain", because half of a bus driver's job is helping old people figuring out which bus to take and where to go and keeping the passengers in check (to prevent vandalism, throw out rowdies or even call the police if there is violence among the passengers, etc.). Occasionally it does not feel safe to take the bus as it is and without a driver to call the police if something happens, that would be the case much more often. And if you need to keep at least one employee in the bus, why would you take them off the wheel and very likely increase the risk of an accident, while also making it more complicated legally in case an accident happens. I don't see a gain, unless the end game is to get rid of employees inside the bus altogether in which case the service quality would decrease drastically, because that half of the bus driver's job I talked about earlier is ignored completely. Maybe it's a good fit in that specific case with the "pre-selected roads", but I am legitimately concerned about this technology being adopted widespread (esp. in the cities) and I don't like the thought of it.
  • badkitty99 4y ago
  • avianlyric 4y ago
    > And if you need to keep at least one employee in the bus, why would you take them off the wheel Driver can help passengers if they’re driving. I could imagine a world where you move the employee to the middle of the Bus and have them help with passenger loading/unloading and providing ticketing and help while the vehicle is in motion. This is something you see on the trams in Amsterdam, they have a conductor in booth in the middle of the tram that can sell tickets etc. That way trams don’t need to wait at stops while the driver is selling tickets and dealing with customer queries. As a passenger it means you can ask about what stop to get off without distracting the driver.
  • mijamo 4y ago
    Depends of the place I guess. In some places bus drivers will absolutely never help you with anything but will mostly be useful for the company to make sure the fare is paid. You can even have foreigner driving buses that don't even speak the local language in some places. In yet other places drivers are explicitly not responsible for anything but driving to ensure their own safety, and are sometimes even physically separated from the public. Helping customers can also be made through intercoms at stations (some cities already have that). Also note that you have fully autonomous metro without any driver in many cities and a metro contains much more people that can have the problems you mention, so I don't see why it would be impossible to have a bus in the same way.
• drdunce 4y ago
  How? Did machine learning leap forward yesterday when I wasn't looking? Did we achieve even basic common-sense reasoning? Or are they planning to unleash several tonnes of machinery onto the roads filled with passengers guided with little more than a CNN and a sprinkle of reinforcement learning that knows how to stay between the lines?
  • dboreham 4y ago
    For those not familiar with the area, the route is a mile or so of totally straight road with passing not needed, pedestrians fenced off and no bicycles. And if there are blowing plastic bags they'll be traveling at around 70mph in the wind so no time to pick them up on the lidar.
    • drdunce 4y ago
      Not familiar with the area(s). But there's two I believe? One over a bridge that terminates after a roundabout the otherside, and one in Edinburgh.
      • Kaibeezy 4y ago
        The route is back and forth across the firth from the park-‘n’-ride in Fife to the intermodal station near EDI.
  • rsynnott 4y ago
    Well, it's the type of autonomous vehicle that has _two_ crew, as opposed to the more normal one for buses...
• Kaibeezy 4y ago
  Bus: large passenger vehicle; plural “buses”. Buss: kiss, smooch; plural “busses”.
• zeristor 4y ago
  The company is called Fusion Processing. Is this some sort of tribute to the seventies film The Big Bus? https://youtu.be/Y1SJthmEiWk https://youtu.be/Y1SJthmEiWk How will Dee Dee get to Yoker now? https://youtu.be/0YfRbNipdOg https://youtu.be/0YfRbNipdOg
• mhandley 4y ago
  I hope autonomous buses are more patient with cyclists than human drivers are. Don't you love it when a bus passes you just before a bus stop, then brakes to a stop right in front of you, forcing you out into traffic to pass. Would only lose five seconds to slow down until the bike is past the stop.
  • olivermarks 4y ago
    I hope future cyclists are more considerate of autonomous buses than with those driven by humans - so many cyclists seem to feel everything is downstream from them in importance. Autonomous buses having to brake suddenly because cyclists have suddenly cut in could really slow bus journeys down. This will be more of an issue in cities where shoals of cyclists typically disregard traffic regulations and ride aggressively. Human drivers have learnt how to cope with this but I suspect cyclists will know the bus will always give way to them and take advantage of that...
    • asdff 4y ago
      Bikes shouldn't be sharing the grade anyhow with traffic.
• throwawayboise 4y ago
  Well, it's not truly autonomous.
• sschueller 4y ago
  What prevents me from standing in front of it and not move? It will just sit there won't it? With a regular bus the driver will get out and give me crap. In Zürich if the trams were autonomous they would be stuck at the stations during rush hours. People run in front of them all the time and the driver needs to be very aware of what is going on. If these same people know the tram is autonomous and has to stop they will be even more careless. I can see autonomous trains working where there is clear separation between the track and people/cars.