Poll: Would you get on a ‘driverless’ bus in Fife?

It is one week until autonomous buses take to the roads in Fife.

The buses will start the route on May 15 – taking passengers from Ferrytoll park and ride near Inverkeithing to the Edinburgh Park Transport Interchange.

Stagecoach say the five buses will run regularly on the 14-mile route, with capacity for about 10,000 passengers a week.

While the bus’s computer technology is what drives the vehicle, a ‘bus captain’ will remain on board to answer questions and sell tickets.

There are 20 staff members completing training ahead of the launch next Monday.

The project will be the first of its kind in the UK to use full sized autonomous buses.

We want to know what our readers think. Will you be one of those passengers?

Tell us if you would get on an autonomous bus in Fife or not in our poll here:

What actually are autonomous buses?

The on-bus technology includes state-of-the-art sensors, including cameras, Radar and LiDAR (laser imaging sensors), together with artificial intelligence technology.

Automated driving systems company Fusion Processing is the project’s lead partner.

The Alexander Dennis Enviro200AV vehicles will drive through mixed traffic at up to 50mph.

Autonomous bus story so far…

There was testing in April 2022 for the driverless buses in Fife. The project’s leaders labelled it the “world’s most complex and ambitious autonomous vehicle programme”.

A driverless bus was also trialled in Inverness in 2022.

But the autonomous vehicle (AV) faced technical problems in the same month.

In January 2023, Fife passengers tested an autonomous bus again over the Forth Road Bridge.

One passenger said she “wasn’t worried at all” relying on computer tech, rather than a human driver.

The launch on May 15 is the first phase of the CAVForth project.

In February, the UK Government granted funding for autonomous projects – including the project’s next stage: CAVForth II.

This will involve autonomous buses driving through Dunfermline city centre, but there is not a date for these trials as yet.

Ahead of the launch next week, Scottish Minister for Transport Kevin Stewart said: “This is an exciting milestone for this innovative and ambitious project, and I very much look forward to seeing Project CAVForth take to the roads next month.

“Our trunk road network can provide a wide range of environments as a diverse testing ground, and the ground-breaking and globally significant Project CAVForth will really help Scotland establish its credentials on the world stage.”

You can watch the video of an autonomous bus trial in Manchester in 2019.