Bus stop for autonomous e-shuttles
The commercial vehicle manufacturer MAN and Mobileye are jointly developing an autonomously driving city bus. The vehicle is scheduled to start pilot operations in Munich in 2025.
On the project are next MAN and Mobileye various research institutes such as the University of Stuttgart, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the research center for computer science and the public utility company as well as the Munich transport company. Furthermore, the framework of the research project “MINGA” (Munich’s automated local transport with ride pooling, solo bus and bus platoons) the companies oki, Ebusco Deutschland GmbH, Benz + Walter GmbH and Fryce GmbH on board.
The goal is to have an autonomous city bus with a safety driver in 2025 Munich to let go. Mobileye will have developed its autonomous driving system called “Mobileye Drive”. The vehicle is to be equipped with various cameras, radar and lidar. In this partnership, MAN will develop the vehicle architecture for the automated bus.
MAN also plans to integrate the autonomous vehicles into an ecosystem. This includes driver activities such as communicating with passengers, ticket sales, behavior at bus stops, de-escalation in conflict situations and reacting to unexpected events such as diversions or accidents. That should be solved by digitization.
The first automated MAN bus of the Lion’s City E type is to be used in Munich city traffic from 2025 with on-board personnel. The operation takes place on line 144, which runs through the Olympic Park and is heavily influenced by tourism and leisure. Mobileye said it is the company’s first city bus with autonomous driving technology.
David Fluhr
I’ve been writing about autonomous & connected driving since 2011. I studied social sciences at the HU Berlin and have been a freelance journalist since 2012. Contact: mail@autonomes-fahren.de