WORLDS AUTOMATIC DRIVERLESS PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Germany was the first nation to launch the world’s foremost automated driverless public transport (train) Deutsche Bahn and Siemens, a German engineering company on October 11, 2021, in Hamburg city.  This world-first train costs around 60 million euros ($70 million) in the rejuvenation of the Urban Rapid Rail System of Hamburg.

It connects the north portion of the rail network city in Germany which includes the S-Bahn rapid urban rail network and started passenger transport from December 2021. The highlight of this system has been launched in the existing rail infrastructure.

The CEO of Siemens Roland Busch declares that computerized trains can transfer up to 30 %  more passengers than the usual rate of transfer, drastically civilizing promptness and saves more than 30% energy

The train is completely automated and proscribed by digital technology. To manage the voyage, a manual driver stays in the train to monitor the movements of passengers and trains. Shunting, such as changing the direction of the train without onboard personnel. It also combines two operating systems such as the European Train Control System (ETCS) and Automatic Train Operation (ATO).

In European cities such as Paris are previously running driverless monorail in airports and fully automatic metros on elite single tracks, unlike the method of operation performed by Hamburg train.

In India, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started a fully automatic driverless train in Magenta Line, Delhi in December 2020, which is the first-ever operated service in Delhi for the distance of 34.2 km and plans to take over the pink line of metro trains too.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is the fourth biggest driverless Metro railway network in the world. The Pink Line, which connects Majlis Park with Shiv Vihar, is the longest Metro corridor in the Capital.

The Pink Line is also the second Metro corridor in New Delhi to have driverless train operations. In Southern parts of Delhi, Magenta Line was constructed like an arc. 

The second corridor under Delhi Metro Phase III, Pink Line were inaugurated by union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri and the Delhi government’s transport minister Kailash Gahlot.

All trains on the line comprise six coaches, it is the first, though, to have driverless trains running on the communication-based train control (CBTC) technology and they have a maximum speed of 80 km/h.  Line 8 uses standard gauge (1435 mm) tracks and 25 kV alternating current supplied from the overhead catenary. Magenta Line has 25 stations along a route length of 34.2 km. It is the only line on the entire system to have civilian entry restricted at one of its stations — Shankar Vihar — which is located in a military area.

DRIVERLESS PUBLIC TRANSPORT – SOLAR-POWERED BUS

India’s first solar-powered, driverless public transport mode -bus made its maiden journey. The bus, designed and built by a team of students of Lovely Professional University (LPU) at Jalandhar, uses GPS and Bluetooth for navigation.

”The camera installed on top of the bus allows for image processing. It senses the road pattern and the bus moves accordingly,” said Mandeep Singh, project head, Solar Driverless Bus at LPU.

How is this Different

All the autonomous cars that have been made in the world have run on petrol, diesel, CNG or use grid-based electricity to charge. This new autonomous car is based on solar power, and therefore naturally has several sets of advantages over the rest of the autonomous vehicle inventions of the world. There is also absolutely no autonomous vehicle that is built on 15 lakh like this bus. The bus is charged using solar panels that line the vehicle.

The bus is supposed to sense its surroundings and the road and drive itself. The panels can generate two kilowatts of power and help charge the six lead-acid batteries that it is equipped with. The bus charging is so strong that it can sustain to run for up to 70 kilometres in one charge.

The 1,500 kg public transport bus can accommodate up to 10 to 30 people and can be used inside closed campuses. It has a speed of 30 kilometres per hour and uses Bluetooth and GPS for the purpose of navigation. The bus can be used to control over a radius of 10 kilometres. They can be deployed to places that need low-range pollution-free vehicles like airports. The price of this driverless bus might set a good benchmark for commercial automakers for the upcoming months.

Future Ahead

The makers of the bus plan to inaugurate the on-road version of the bus by the end of the year. When asked whether the new invention will compete with Google’s and Tesla’s autonomous vehicles,

Mandeep Singh, Project Lead of the Autonomous Bus said, “Not right now. They have expertise at Tesla. We can’t compete with them at this stage, but I will not hesitate to say that in the coming years we will be among their competitors,”

Although the car does not compete with the other giant inventions of autonomous vehicles, it sure is a breakthrough since it uses solar power, and the country should look forward to these buses taking over our city roads.

“The vehicles will be self-driving. So you have your own person space where you can sit back and relax.” ~John Krafcik, CEO WAYMO.