Inverness Campus is hosting the first autonomous vehicle passenger service pilot in Scotland.
The vehicle has arrived in the Scottish Highlands and the trials are now underway and will continue until March next year.
HITRANS, the regional transport partnership for the Highlands and Islands, is promoting the scheme to encourage multimodal travel and to move away from private car use.
It won European funding – through the Planning for Autonomous Vehicles (PAV) project, funded by the Interreg North Sea Region Programme – and is working with a number of partners to deliver the project.
These include Stagecoach, which will operate the service, Navya, which manufactured the vehicle, The Highland Council and Inverness Campus.
The autonomous passenger service provides a 3km (1.8-mile) route linking Inverness Campus with Inverness Retail and Business Park, including a railway crossing facilitated by the recently introduced sustainable travel bridge.
The corridor is restricted to public transport, walking, and cycling only, with those walking and cycling segregated from road vehicles across most of the route.
One vehicle is operating on the route offering up to 15 occupants, with 11 seated and four standing.
The shuttle service is expected to be used by students and people working on the Inverness Campus site to access the neighbouring Shopping and Business Park throughout the day.
The vehicle will initially operate on a shuttle basis from 10am until 4pm and no fares will be charged until 01 October 2022.
Monitoring will be conducted throughout the pilot on various technological aspects as well as social impacts.
The intention of the pilot is not only to test the viability of a route operated by an autonomous vehicle, but also to test the technology required to use such vehicles in combination with other transport modes and better understand user perceptions.
Dedicated work streams have therefore been developed to focus on the long-term socio-economic impacts of autonomous vehicles, with research validated using pilot project results.
Scottish transport minister Jenny Gilruth said: “We want Scotland to be at the forefront of the connected mobility and autonomous vehicle industry and this pilot project is another exciting development.
“This type of innovation shows Scotland is very much open for business when it comes to trialling this technology. I wish Inverness Campus, HITRANS and project partners every success with this pilot.”
The trial is seen as complementary to a project in Hannover, Germany, where trialling an autonomous bus shuttle between a tram stop and a new university campus is being undertaken.
