The Flemish public transport company De Lijn is deploying two autonomous shuttles in Leuven (Louvain). They will operate on line 16, the new line connecting the train station with the station and the borough of Heverlee. According to De Lijn, this is a European first for a public transport company.
The Leuven-Heverlee route is approximately 4 km long, has 9 stops, and takes 18 minutes. A ride on the shuttle – the company WeRide’s route has been extensively tested without passengers since September – costs the same as a regular ticket.
Payment can be made via text message, the De Lijn app, or by showing the driver a subscription. However, there are no validation machines in the vehicle, so tickets must be validated digitally to be valid for travel.
Driver still present
The shuttle can carry up to 8 passengers and travels up to 40 kph. For the time being, there will still be a driver at the front, who can intervene if necessary and answer passengers’ questions. In time, the driver will move to one of the seats at the back of the shuttle.
De Lijn bus drivers do not need to fear for their jobs just yet, partly because there are still major difficulties in filling driving vacancies.
At peak times or during off-peak hours, part of this shortage could eventually be offset by autonomous transport, but autonomous shuttles currently serve as a supplement to De Lijn’s existing services.
Shift in mode of transport
“We want to be pioneers in Flanders with autonomous vehicles,” says Flemish Minister of Mobility Annick De Ridder (N-VA), the first official passenger yesterday, while Federal Minister of Mobility Jean-Luc Crucke (Les Engagés) and the mayor of Leuven also joined the ride.
“We long thought that autonomous driving would remain science fiction, but that is not the case. We want to work on this during this legislative period to move from a pilot project to actual use.”
The rollout of autonomous public transport in other Flemish cities has not yet been translated into concrete plans or timings. However, other cities are already “very interested” in the shuttles, the Flemish minister says.
“We still have to remove the legislative barriers, but I am committed to expanding autonomous public transport, and with this project, we want to be ready for the shift that will occur within five to ten years,” De Ridder concludes.
European first
The project with the shuttle or RoboBus was made possible through a collaboration between De Lijn, MIVB/STIB, LETEC, the Espaces Mobilités research agency, the City of Leuven, the Flemish, Brussels, and federal governments, and with support from European funds from the EIT Urban Mobility project.
WeRide’s shuttles have previously been tested in cities such as Zurich, Paris, and Barcelona, and projects are also underway in Châteauroux and Hamburg.
Autonomous buses have been operating on a city route in Stavanger, Norway, since 2022, but this is the first time that a national public transport company in Europe has deployed such shuttles in a historic city center with very high traffic complexity.
