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

  • April 25, 2013
    Diverse development of tolling business models
    A diversity of tolling business models offers a wider toolbox of highway finance options, as the IBTTA’s Patrick Jones explains. The business models for America’s tolled highways have gone through several different evolutions over the last 75 years, reflecting a succession of shifts in transportation policy and politics, financing and funding models, urban patterns, customer needs, and technology. And with more and more decision-makers expressing renewed interest in tolling, it’s that very diversity that ma
    Read More
  • May 31, 2018
    CTS to integrate bus fareboxes with MARTA Breeze back office
    Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) will upgrade the farebox system for Atlanta’s Xpress bus service. The company will integrate the system with the back office for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) Breeze card. CTS designed and delivered Breeze - an automated fare collection system – in 2006. The project stems from an agreement with the State Roadway & Tollway Authority (SRTA) – a government agency that finances transport initiatives in the US state of Georgia. SRTA expects the fare
    Read More
  • July 15, 2022
    LA can learn from Oakland UBM
    Los Angeles is just embarking on its universal basic mobility journey – but fortunately the city can draw on the findings of a similar programme in Oakland…
    Read More
  • August 23, 2023
    The inside story of how traffic chaos was avoided after I-95 collapse
    June’s collapse of major US roadway I-95 in Pennsylvania could have caused lengthy traffic chaos. But - relatively speaking at least - it didn’t and gridlock was avoided. Alan Dron finds out why
    Read More

Highlighted Content