Nationwide pilot project
Self -driving cars transport the first passengers
In the car from A to B – and the vehicle controls itself? In southern Hesse, this is now being tested in local public transport – a premiere in Germany.
Passengers of local public transport can use autonomous cars in southern Hesse from Wednesday. The nationwide pilot project presented the Deutsche Bahn and the Rhein-Main Transport Association (RMV) in Langen. Test persons order a trip via the app and are then driven to your destination within a specified area.
According to the information, it is for the first time nationwide that passengers of local public transport ride in self -driving cars. During the test phase there is still a security driver on board in order to be able to intervene in an emergency. Otherwise, the car drives autonomously, it is monitored by a control center.
The pilot project is a so-called on-demand range of local public transport (public transport). On-demand means that passengers can order a car on call via app-similar to the UBER driving service platform.
According to the railway, such offers should make local public transport more attractive and flexible, especially outside of the metropolitan areas. They could also be cheaper, according to hope.
Trips for test subjects free of charge
A fixed group of test subjects is selected for the pilot project – the journey is free for you. For the time being, two vehicles in Langen and Egelsbach are traveling in the Offenbach district. The city of Darmstadt is to be added as another area in the second half of the year.
The Federal Ministry of Transport funding the project with around 2.2 million euros, further money came from the RMV. The project bears the name “Kira”, which stands for AI-based regular operation of autonomous on-demand traffic.
Nationwide there are other projects for passenger transport in autonomous vehicles: In Hamburg, for example, autonomous collecting taxis have been tested and from July an autonomously driving call bus is to be on the move in Mecklenburg -Western Pomerania – but initially without passengers. Deutsche Bahn also presented an autonomous minibus in Herford in North Rhine-Westphalia this year.
dpa
Source: Stern
