EasyMile to be first to launch driverless buses on public roads in Europe
At a new stage in the development of autonomous driving, technology company EasyMile has become the first autonomous vehicle solutions provider in Europe to receive permission to operate at Level 4 (without a human driver on board) in mixed traffic on public roads.
The French Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Ecological Transition granted the company permission, on the recommendation of the Ministry of the Interior and local authorities, to conduct trials in Toulouse at the Oncopole medical campus, in partnership with Alstom.
EasyMile's technology was approved by a decree on June 29, 2021, ahead of the final regulatory framework allowing autonomous vehicles to operate on public roads in France starting in September 2022. EasyMile underwent rigorous testing and inspections demonstrating the safety and reliability of its technology.
At its test site in Toulouse, the company met French Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari and took the opportunity to thank him. This is a major breakthrough for EasyMile and for the entire industry, confirming the scalability of its technology and positioning the provider as a pioneer of future road mobility.
“This is an important step toward the real commercialization of autonomous driving, both on large private sites and on public roads. Applications of our technology for moving people and goods continue to grow, especially in places such as university campuses, business parks, industrial sites and various planned communities. I look forward to a future in which more and more people adopt intelligent public transport”
EasyMile's driverless technology has grown rapidly over the past 18 months. It was the first autonomous vehicle provider to deploy fully driverless operations in France on a private site, and it has been followed by several other Level 4 services around the world.
These include food delivery in North America, a deployment in Scandinavia, the award-winning driverless BusBot shuttle at the Coffs Harbour Botanic Garden in Australia, and now the Oncopole service in France.
The company is the most experienced provider of autonomous shuttles for Level 4 deployments: it currently has seven, the highest number on the market.
EasyMile's public-road vehicles are equipped with appropriate safety levels and system redundancy to operate safely and efficiently in a wide range of conditions. Because the integrity level of this technology is now high enough to remove onboard supervisors and introduce remote monitoring on more and more vehicles, it offers commercial and operational benefits such as:
- Scalability. A control center can monitor several vehicles from any location, meaning the service can scale to a fleet of autonomous vehicles without additional workforce.
- Flexibility. The service becomes fully flexible, as vehicles can be deployed immediately as demand arises, without waiting for additional operators. These driving qualities and shuttles that can operate safely and efficiently in complex conditions deliver services that are meaningful to users.
The Oncopole service runs between the main entrance and a remote parking lot on a 600-metre route with mixed traffic shared by cyclists, pedestrians, cars and buses. In the coming months it will be fully transitioned to driverless operation.
The Oncopole autonomous shuttle service, part of the SAM project (Safety and Acceptability of Autonomous Driving and Mobility), is run in partnership with Alstom, and the latest V2X technology helps the shuttle communicate with infrastructure such as traffic lights. Toulouse Métropole and IUCT-Oncopole are also important supporters of the project.
This operation underpins France's national strategy for autonomous vehicles, helping to jointly build the legal framework for use on open roads. It is supported by the French government's "Investissements d'avenir" program, led by ADEME, as part of the EVRA (Experiments with Autonomous Road Vehicles) project call.
SAM is a French national project for driving experiments and autonomous mobility, bringing together industry players, research and territorial partners. It has a dual goal: to develop the use of these systems and public knowledge of them among citizens and local stakeholders, and to create the future regulatory framework, particularly in terms of confirming safety.
EasyMile offers software and end-to-end solutions for driverless passenger and freight transport. The company works with leading manufacturers to make their vehicles autonomous using its award-winning, safety-focused technology, ready for deployment today, with clear benefits for customers.
EZ10 is the most widely deployed autonomous shuttle in the world, in many cases providing services where none existed before. TractEasy is a tow-tractor solution that optimizes supply chains with round-the-clock material handling at factories and industrial sites, both indoors and outdoors.
Having carried out several large-scale operations around the world, EasyMile was the first company to deploy fully driverless Level 4 operation. Its customers include leading transport operators, city authorities, airports, business parks, universities, manufacturers, factories and logistics centers.
