Alexander Dennis Bus to Carry Passengers in Cambridge Autonomous Connector Trial

Cambridge’s autonomous vehicle trial, Connector, is set to receive a new 26-seater bus.

© Greater Cambridge Partnership

Starting from today (17 December); a new Alexander Dennis Enviro 100AEV autonomous bus will begin operating services linking both the Trumpington and Babraham Park & Ride sites with the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC).

Run by the Greater Cambridge Patnership (GCP); the trial, which runs for free between Monday and Friday, aims to explore the feasibility of introducing autonomous buses into Cambridge’s future transport solutions.

Thus far, a small Connector bus running in West Cambridge has already carried 800 passengers since its launch in June. Another bus is set to join the trial over the coming weeks, with the two larger buses set to give more passengers to opportunity to experience the GCP’s offering.

Dan Clarke, Head of Innovation and Technology at the Greater Cambridge Partnership, said:

In June, we rolled out Connector, the first ever timetabled self-driving bus service in Cambridge, now just six months later we’re launching two new larger buses as the second part of our passenger trial. We believe that there is real potential for self-driving vehicles to deliver sustainable, reliable public transport in Cambridge.

As well as proving the technology can work and that self-driving buses can manage road traffic at scale, we are really interested in the passenger experience. We are working with Anthrometric as a research partner, to understand how people feel about using self-driving buses and how we can build confidence and trust in this new technology.

The Connector project has been funded by the UK Government as part of the CAM Pathfinder Programme, which is delivered by the Department for Business and Trade’s Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) team, in partnership with Innovate UK and Zenzic.