A Ride on a Driverless Bus

The RAC in Perth is currently conducting a trial run of an electric driverless bus, and offered members a ride on it.

Grandma C and I did the ride a few weeks ago, despite Son No 1's remonstration: "What's the point?  It's like riding on a bus, but much slower!" - failing to understand we're retired folk with time on our hands.

This is what it looks like and it seats 10 people

The bus is French-made by a company called Navya.

 The bus also has 2 LIDAR units at the top front and rear to detect traffic and obstacles and a front camera to read street signs, traffic lights etc.

The LIDAR unit on the roof of the vehicle

The Camera - and it's windshield wiper

It was explained to us that the bus follows set GPS waypoints along its route, very much like a tram on invisible rails.  It was also programmed to go as far left as possible, and indeed, I found it quite disconcerting as to how close to parked vehicles it went (barely 15 cm clearance!).

Interior shots:

The bus was air-conditioned, but the a/c unit wasn't up to the task, as it got really hot in there.  And the day itself wasn't particularly warm, too.

The bus has a maximum speed of 45 kph, but for this trial, it only went at 14 kph.

At one point, while passing under some trees, it lost the GPS signal for a moment before regaining it, and you can then feel a sudden lurch, as it starts to stop and then re-starts.

So here's a little video I took of the ride on my phone.  Watch out for the cyclist overtaking the bus at the end.