Where Can You Ride a Driverless Bus?

Well, you could have, or maybe you did, hop on a driverless mini-bus at the recent ITS World Congress conference, where driverless shuttles transported attendees between sites. Over 11,000 attendees from around the world, a few shuttles, and no mishaps.

I was going to link to an article with information about driverless transit pilots going on now or soon to be tested - with real-people as passengers. But the article is incomplete. That's how fast the developments are. To be complete requires daily following of this topic. Vacations = huge setback.

Where can you ride a driverless bus or shuttle of some kind? Plan to travel in the new year. In 2016, there will be driverless opportunities in California, Japan, Singapore, England, a few places in Europe, and China. Not all will be on roads; some will be on a private campus of some kind. Okay, I'm not sure if the Chinese bus is accepting passengers yet.

Boring ...

In fact, an article I'm just reading from yesterday reminds me of the old news that the 2020 Olympics, to be held in Japan, will offer driverless taxi service.

Japan, get with the program: Go for the driverless bus as well. Otherwise, you'll be behind Europe's CityMobil2, an office park and a university in California, and a bus in China. And to think I listened to baseball on Japanese transistor radios. Step up to the plate.

If you want to invest

One company that produces and develops technology that supports driverless vehicles to safely operate is expanding yet again. Nvidia, a California-headquartered company that does lots of its work in India is expanding in India to Pune, the country's seventh-largest city and a place that seems well worth a visit (I have never been to India, by the way, though almost everyone I know who has traveled there has ended up with a terrible gastrointestinal bug that lasted a month.)