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All aboard the autonomous bus
Trial of self-driving public transport bus takes place in the UK
We all know autonomous vehicles are coming, but much of the focus has been on cars and self-driving pods. What about public transport? We are used to being in airplanes knowing that the autopilot is in control, but what about on the ground? UK public transport operator Stagecoach is now testing a fully autonomous bus at a depot in Manchester. It was manufactured by Alexander Dennis, Britain's biggest bus-building company and probably more famously known for making fire-fighting trucks. Based on an ADL Enviro200 bus, it uses a system called CavStar made by Fusion Processing which includes a wide range of sensors such as lidar, optical cameras and ultrasound, as well as GPS navigation. Initially it will be tested only at the depot where the autonomous driving system will pilot the bus during operations such as parking and going to the bus wash. But the plan is that in 2020 it will form part of an autonomous bus trial of five vehicles that will operate in Scotland between Fife and Ed...
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