Line 35, Akershusstranda

Ruter believes that shared autonomous mobility will play an important part of the future transportation system. We therefore want to be in front of the development to learn and utilize the technology advances in this area.

Route 35 operated along Akershusstranda (from town hall square to Vippetangen) in the centre of Oslo, and covered an area of Oslo that had no previous public transport coverage. The vehicles operated on a fixed schedule/route. The route covered regular roads with mixed traffic and separate cycle lanes, regular private road without cycle lanes, a shared space with cars, pedestrians and cyclists as well as the town hall square. The main cycle route east-west in Oslo goes in parallel with where the route operated. There is also a cruise terminal with frequent arrivals of big ships carrying up to 4000 passengers along the route. There were three stops on the route, and the shuttles were driving at a maximum of 18 km/h.

There is not any other public transport coverage in the area that was covered by route 35. As such the bus line enabled mobility for people in this area and was also intended to attract visitors to Vippetangen (which was a targeted development area by the municipality). The area is located in the city centre of Oslo and has high visibility at the same time as attracting lots of people.

The purpose of the project was to explore how an automated vehicle can play part in the overall public transport network, how passengers, pedestrians, and in particular cyclists, interact with the vehicles and how vehicle copes with large groups of people when the big cruise ships arrive. At the same time focus is on developing competencies and processes within participating organizations to enable stable operation over time and to enable new, more complex projects in the months/years to come.

AV testing is enabled through a separate legislation and is obtained through a special permit from the Directorate of Public Roads.

There is extremely high activity level in the area, both in terms of pedestrians/cyclists, large buses in relation to cruise traffic, and through several events and construction activities.

The project ended in October 2019. The service was launched late May with two vehicles, named Mads and Oda. In late August two more vehicles, Selma and Yonas, were added to the service. During the five months of operation as much as 22 000 people travelled with the shuttles, despite the service being temporarily halted in periods due to local events and road construction. The number of passengers normally ranged from 200-400 passengers per day, and the vehicles travelled about 40 km each per day. The customer satisfaction was high, and no serious accidents occurred.

Reports are under development.

The Institute of Transport Economics is evaluating the vehicle to cyclist interaction in particular and will prepare an overall report/presentation on this available later in the project.

• Cooperation with the Institute of Transport Economics (TØI): The testing of self-driving vehicles is carried out in close collaboration with the Institute of Transport Economics (TØI) in several arenas, including through the Autobus project, where TØI studies customer behavior and interaction in traffic from a self-driving perspective. The tests are also used in the research work TØI carries out in connection with Drive to the Future. The Drive2TheFuture project aims to prepare drivers, travelers and vehicle operators for the future to create acceptance for autonomous means of transport. In this pilot TØI studied the vehicles on route with video recordings, and in particular the interaction with cyclists on the route. Reports are under development

• SmartFeeder: The SmartFeeder project aim to identify challenges and gain experience from the best services in various self-driving pilot projects in Norway. The project is partly financed by the Norwegian Research Council through “Transport 2025”. Co-pilots are ForusShuttle, OBOS at Fornebu, Kongsberg Test Arena, Gjøvik and Ruter.

• The project is financed by Climate funds. Read more about the project and the report here.