Scotland is set to begin testing five self-driving buses on May 15

Published on: April 10, 2023

Part-funded by the UK Government, the project will be launched on the Alexander Dennis Enviro200AV model operated by Stagecoah.

Alexandre Peleki

Five autonomous buses, model Enviro200AV manufactured by Alexander Dennis (ADL), will be used in service by Stagecoah, the UK’s largest bus operator.

The trials are a joint project of CAVForth, Fusion Processing, Stagecoach, Alexander Dennis, Transport Scotland, Edinburgh Napier University and Bristol Robotics Lab.

A project aimed at Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles – CCAV), partly funded by the UK Government, CAVForth is one of the most complex in the world and the first registered service to use it. Buses are fully self-contained.

Passenger-less testing of these self-driving buses will begin in April 2022 for a two-week period. Passengers were first transported on buses during additional testing in January 2023.

Earlier, the UK’s first self-driving bus, the Enviro200 MMC, was trialled with Stagecoach Manchester in October 2019.

The fleet will cover approximately 23 kilometers of mixed traffic, running at speeds of up to 80 km/h across the iconic Forth Road Bridge near Edinburgh.

The service has a capacity of around 10,000 trips per week and operates during regular hours.

Two staff will be on board: a security driver, in the driver’s seat, who will monitor technology and another inside the vehicle, checking tickets and answering passengers’ questions.

Alexander Dennis head of advanced engineering design, Jamie Wilson, will use the Enviro200 AV self-driving buses for commuters between Fife and Edinburgh.

Stagecoach UK chief executive Carla Stockton-Jones is excited to introduce the UK’s first self-driving buses to the east of Scotland, home to the company’s headquarters and where it started 40 years ago.

Scottish Transport Minister Kevin Stewart said the country’s main road network could provide a wide range of environments as a diverse testing ground for the CAVForth project.

Alexandre Peleki is a journalist specializing in transport