Swiss roads could see driverless vehicles within three years

Controlled trials of driverless vehicles began in Switzerland ten years’ ago. A recent law change has moved testing into the fast lane, raising the possibility of automated cars and buses operating in real-life conditions in around three years.

Matthew Allen

I write about the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence technology and its possible impacts on society.
Originally from England, I spent some time at the BBC in London before moving to Switzerland to join SWI swissinfo.ch.

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Since 2015, public transport operators and private companies have launched some 30 major automated vehicle projects around the country. These include buses, taxis, automated valet parking, quarry dumper trucks and delivery vans.

An update to federal legislation, that came into effect on March 1, allows driverless vehicle testing on the open road without a safety operator on board. The law transfers responsibility for granting licenses and for monitoring safety from the federal authorities to the cantons.

Manufacturers are now waiting for the cantons to lay out the conditions for integrating driverless vehicles onto Swiss roads.

Such vehicles would be fitted with artificial intelligence (AI) systems to help them drive safely without direct human intervention. AI can recognise obstacles, such as cars, pedestrians and traffic lights; help the vehicle decide when to brake or change lanes; communicate with passengers; predict maintenance needs or create simulation environments for testing purposes.

Integration onto roads

“The next step is to work out the benefits, potential risks, commercial viability and public acceptance of applying this technology on the streets,” says Matthias Rödter, president of Swiss Transit Lab, a non-profit organisation launched in 2019 to help vehicle manufacturers, technology providers and cantonal authorities align interests as an automated transport strategy takes shape in Switzerland.

“What type of services make sense? Who should run them? Which roads are suitable? What is the optimal speed of vehicles, the time of day and weather conditions when they can operate? There are still many questions to answer before the market can develop.”

Public transport company PostAuto also has plenty to consider as it plans a driverless fleet to connect people living in rural areas to towns and train stations.

“There’s a huge difference between operating five vehicles and fifty,” said PostAuto automated driving project leader Martin Neubauer. “You need to consider how many people are required to operate and maintain the vehicles, the planning of staff shifts, the costs of running large fleets and how to achieve cost-efficiency.”

“Beyond that, there are important challenges such as data and cyber security – key areas that contribute to building essential know-how. Road testing the technology is just one stage of the process.”

Short time scale

It is up to every country to set their own regulations for automated vehicles. But there is nevertheless some collaboration between Switzerland and other countries in setting standards.

The ULTIMO project, co-funded by Switzerland and the European Union, has launched driverless vehicle trials in the Swiss canton of Geneva, Norway’s capital Oslo and the German town of Herford.

ULTIMO is the next step on from the EU’s AVENUE project, which ended in 2022 and included the participation of PostAuto and the Geneva public transport authorities (TPG). Some common learnings and objectives make sense for Switzerland given the amount of cross border traffic from neighbouring countries.

TPG is now putting its driverless shuttle buses through advanced testing in Geneva as part of the ULTIMO project, this time without having a safety operator on board the vehicles. 

“Running vehicles that are remotely supervised [Level 4 – see box below] is a key step towards upscaling and ensuring cost efficiency,” said Rödter, who believes driverless vehicles will appear sooner than many people think.

“It should be understood that automated vehicles are not coming in ten years, but most likely in the next two to three years with further projects,” he said.

Edited by Gabe Bullard/gw