The first driverless public transport service in Italy will start in Turin in May. The trial will be run by GTT Gruppo Torinese Trasporti and will be divided into two phases. In March and April, the shuttles will start traveling without passengers along the 5 km route around the Città della Salute hospital area, to test the vehicles' behaviour in different traffic situations. In May, however, the first driverless journeys will begin, carrying passengers, who will be able to book their seats free of charge through an app, to be released shortly, which will allow them to choose their own times and stops. The whole experiment will last a total of five months.
The project GTT has joined is called Show and has involved twenty different cities from all over Europe, united by the desire to create new solutions for sustainable urban mobility and financed by the European programme for innovation Horizon 2000 in which Italy has collaborated through the Department for Digital Transformation, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry for Development and Sustainable Mobility.
This is not the first experiment of its kind to be launched in our city. In recent years Reale Mutua, the municipal administration and the Ministry of Innovation had already carried out similar tests with the Olli self-driving bus, made by the American company Local Motors, to transport passengers inside the UN Campus in corso Unità d'Italia. This new starting project will use a model of shuttle already in service in other European cities and produced by the French company Navya: 11 seats and 3 standing places and an autonomous driving that doesn’t involve a human driver, yet just an on-board operator prepared to intervene in the management of any breakdowns or emergencies.
(Photo credit: Navya)