Skip to main content

Finland just unleashed a fleet of self-driving buses in its capital

japan self driving bus elderly helsinki driverless
Sohjoa
China may have its bizarre straddling bus, but Finland is also moving ahead with plans for a high-tech public transportation system.

We’re talking self-driving buses, with a couple of its specially designed box-shaped vehicles now tootling along regular roads in the country’s capital city of Helsinki.

It’s part of a month-long trial, but the fact that they’re now allowed to mix with regular traffic suggests it may not be too long before more of the buses hit the city’s streets as part of a permanent program.

“This is actually a really big deal right now,” project leader Harri Santamala told local media. “There’s no more than a handful of these kinds of street traffic trials taking place [around the world], if that.”

Helsinki’s new electric buses are the work of France-based EasyMile, which itself is the result of a joint venture between two other French companies – automaker Ligier and robotics firm Robosoft.

Santamala added that the new vehicle, which can carry up to 10 passengers, could one day be used to supplement existing public transportation services, acting as a feeder service for busier routes. However, the vehicle’s somewhat leisurely top speed – just 6 mph (9.6 kmh) – suggests passengers will have to be cool about being overtaken by the occasional jogger heading along the same route.

Of course, Finland isn’t the only country interested in rolling out driverless buses. A number of countries are developing systems similar to those used by a growing number of self-driving car projects, among them China which last year started testing a full-size autonomous bus on regular roads.

Also in China, internet giant Baidu is reportedly planning to begin mass production of driverless buses within five years, while back in the U.S., Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently hinted that, alongside his ambitious car, space, and Hyperloop projects, a more modest driverless bus project could also be on the cards.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Transdev ordered to stop using self-driving shuttles as school buses
transdev autonomous school buses shut down by nhtsa

Self-driving technology has come a long way in a short period of time, but it still has a long way to go. While companies have had troubles getting clearance to put autonomous cars on the roads, French firm Transdev has been operating a self-driving school bus that has been taking kids to school in Florida. That operation is no more following a government intervention.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent a letter to Transdev's branch in North America asking the company to cease operation of its school bus program, according to Jalopnik. Transdev had been using it EZ10 Generation II autonomous shuttle to transport up to 12 kids to and from the Babcock Neighborhood School in Florida.

Read more
Ford’s self-driving cars hit the streets of the nation’s capital
Ford self-driving car in Washington, D.C.

Ford is expanding its self-driving car program, which seeks to find business uses for the technology, to Washington, D.C. The nation's capital joins Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Miami as a site for Ford's autonomous car testing.

"Both Ford and district officials are committed to exploring how self-driving vehicles can be deployed in an equitable way across the various neighborhoods that make up Washington, D.C., in a way that promotes job creation," Ford autonomous-vehicle boss Sherif Marakby said in a blog post.

Read more
Tesla gives its self-driving cars a performance boost with custom chips
Tesla Model 3

Tesla has a need for silicon speed when it comes to the company's ambitious plans for autonomous driving. After confirming late last year that it was working on its own artificial intelligence chips, CEO Elon Musk revealed more details on an earnings call with investors, stating that the chip is "the world's most advanced computer specifically for autonomous operation." Called Hardware 3, Tesla's new in-car computer is said to be more powerful than the Nvidia hardware that it replaces.

"Musk said that the new chip, due out next year, will deliver an 'order of magnitude improvement in operations per second' compared to 'current Nvidia hardware,'" Ars Technica reported. Tesla currently uses Nvidia's Drive PX2 platform in its cars, but that chip debuted nearly two years ago. Since then, Nvidia has announced a new PX 2 Pegasus chip, which the company claims delivers 10 times the performance of the original chips that Tesla adopted.

Read more