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CDA
November 25, 2022
Israel will study the feasibility of autonomous buses for its public transportation in the next two years.
Elon Musk tells us every bit about self-driving cars and Tesla’s efforts to get their cars to have this feature. However, with less verbiage and more facts, Israel Sets to Test Autonomous Buses in Two Years.
The main objective of the Israeli authorities is to try alleviate the country’s traffic congestion and improve services to encourage the use of public transport.
The Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) has announced that four consortia will be selected to carry out the test throughout the countrystarting with the first phase of operation and testing in safe and closed places, to then progress towards autonomous bus lines on public roads, in an increasing range over the two-year period.
Alleviate traffic jams and alleviate the lack of drivers
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The aim of the initiative is to study the feasibility of integrating autonomous buses and shuttles into the public transport system as part of a national plan of about 17 million euros to achieve a public transport mostly based on autonomous driving.
Earlier this year, Israel’s parliament passed a law that will allow companies to carry out pilot tests of autonomous transport shared, such as taxis and buses, with passengers in the vehicle, but without a security driver, on the country’s roads.
This law clears the way for the national autonomous public transportation plan, as well as Mobileye, the Jerusalem-based autonomous driving subsidiary of Intel, which was expected to will launch a pilot of autonomous taxis (“robotaxis”) and ride-sharing services in Tel Aviv (and Munich) this summer. The initiative has not yet been launched.
The four groups participating in the public transport pilot project are the two main Israeli bus operators, Egged (with the largest intercity routes) and Dan and a couple of smaller operators, Metropoline and Nateev Express. These four transport companies will partner with their respective groups of companies based in Israel, France, Turkey, Norway and the United States.
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The project will allow authorities lay out the necessary infrastructure for the operation of an autonomous public transport system and to test the commercial aspects. Groups that manage to implement and complete the two-year pilot project will be offered contracts to expand their services in Israel.
The plan can also help alleviate the national shortage of bus driverswho have been on intermittent strike since the summer.
