AECOM sets up Automated Bus Consortium

AECOM has brought together around a dozen local US transit agencies to form the Automated Bus Consortium to explore driverless bus pilot programmes. Among the authorities are Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. ABC is looking into buying up to 100 full-sized autonomous buses that will run at normal speeds along designated urban routes. Meanwhile, AECOM will provide planning, assessment, implementation and
June 10, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

3525 AECOM has brought together around a dozen local US transit agencies to form the Automated Bus Consortium to explore driverless bus pilot programmes.

Among the authorities are 1275 Dallas Area Rapid Transit, 1795 Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the 4162 Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority.

ABC is looking into buying up to 100 full-sized autonomous buses that will run at normal speeds along designated urban routes. Meanwhile, AECOM will provide planning, assessment, implementation and evaluation of the services for the consortium members.

The plan calls for a 12-month feasibility study followed by buses rolling out onto roads between 2021 and 2022. Each agency will make their own decisions regarding future additional automated bus purchases and deployment following the completion of the feasibility phase.

AECOM said it will host a forum in Detroit, Michigan, in September for ABC members to meet technology companies and bus manufacturers to discuss the development of programme specifications. Buses are expected to roll out onto the members’ streets within two years.

Related Content

  • Truck platooning trials take to the highways
    July 24, 2017
    There is rising enthusiasm in America and beyond for the concept of truck platooning with trials being planned in several US states, as David Crawford reports. Growing numbers of US states are considering or implementing plans for trials of electronically-linked truck platooning on public road networks. This is in response to the interest being shown by the US$70bn a year road freight industry, where fuel represents 41% of the operating costs making the prospect of improving fuel economy by trucks travellin
    Read More
  • Transportation hub the centre of sustainable urban development
    November 21, 2012
    A marriage of transit, technology and culture is taking shape in Minneapolis, with ITS systems vital to hopes for a sustainable development centred on a hub of public transportation. Construction started in July this year on ‘The Interchange’ – a station in the Midwest US city of Minneapolis claimed as the most spectacular expression yet of the fast-spreading North American concept of transit-oriented development (TOD). Due for completion in 2014, the Interchange is designed as a multi-modal public transpor
    Read More
  • Making the most of Michigan
    January 9, 2018
    Michigan DoT’s Kirk Steudle takes time out from the ITS World Congress in Montreal to talk to Colin Sowman. Thirty years ago, a professional engineer named Kirk Steudle joined Michigan Department of Transportation (MDoT). Today he’s the state transportation director, responsible for more than 16,000km (10,000 miles) of state highways (including 4,000 bridges), some 2,500 employees and a budget of more than $4 billion. We caught up with Steudle during the ITS World Congress in Montreal and asked how he
    Read More
  • Applied Information to implement bus transit priority system in Atlanta
    June 15, 2018
    Applied Information is to provide traffic signal priority for Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) buses in a bid to make bus transit faster than car journeys in the city. Applied’s Glance Smart Cities Supervisory technology will be used at 23 intersections along Atlanta’s Campbellton Road Smart Corridor. The initiative, which also involves system integrator Temple, will be implemented between the Oakland City MARTA station and I-285 – an interstate loop which encircles Atlanta – and
    Read More

Highlighted Content