Shuttle Buses at Zurich Airport Operate Autonomously at Level 3

(CONNECT) The pilot project for autonomous shuttle buses at Zurich Airport has entered a new phase. According to a press release, the project has reached automation level 3. This means that airport employees can use the buses for their commute between the airport head (Gate 101) and the maintenance depot (Gate 130). There are safety drivers on board the buses who could intervene in the event of a problem. So far, the buses have run without passengers in an initial test phase.

The current success is due to the cooperation between several airport departments and the technology partner WeRide. Preparations included setting up a new IT infrastructure, hundreds of test drives and a large number of technical checks. In addition to training courses, regulatory requirements and technical processes were also optimized.

In a further phase, journeys are carried out without a safety driver using a remote cockpit. If these trips without passengers are successful, the buses could then also drive autonomously without a driver. "We assume that we will be able to carry out the first tests with remote monitoring and without security drivers by the end of the year at the earliest," Raphaël Glaesener, Senior Innovation Manager at Flughafen Zürich AG, is quoted as saying in the press release. If successful, Zurich Airport would be the first in Europe with autonomous driving on its premises. ce/ww