The City of Cambridge is “closer to the commercial deployment” of driverless buses than any other city in the UK and most of Europe, the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) has said. The authority plans to extend a trial of using autonomous vehicles until June 2028, with the aim of deploying the vehicles on Cambridge’s busways, says the BBC.

The self-driving 15-seater buses have been serving the Cambridge West Innovation District, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, and the Madingley Road and Babraham Road park and ride sites. It has also begun trialling the vehicles on a busway in Bristol.

The GCP’s executive board will meet later this week to discuss the next steps.

The Connector buses run on a loop aided by cameras and exterior sensors that mean they can stop if obstructed. A person is also present on each bus as a safety monitor.

The trial has so far highlighted considerations around “ticketing, information, passenger safety, incident management and openness on the technology and safety features,” a GCP report said. It has also raised accessibility for people with disabilities as an “area of concern”. A report on serving passengers with protected characteristics is being compiled.

The GCP said driverless buses could “significantly improve the public transport offering” in Cambridgeshire by allowing bus companies to run services for longer, including on routes they do not currently deem commercially viable.

The authority said it also wanted to “improve safety and reduce operating costs” and that the project had generated “significant national and international interest” with visitors from across Europe, the US and Japan coming to see the driverless buses in action.

(Picture: Cambridge University)