The EasyMile EZ10 electric shuttle is an unassuming beast. With neither steering wheel nor driver, it has the feel of a capsule on the London Eye. But instead of rising upwards, it is navigating traffic in a Parisian car park.
A car pulls out, crossing the shuttle’s path. The passengers collectively hold their breath; has the shuttle spotted this moving obstacle? Will it react in time? But there is no cause for alarm. The EZ10 slows gently and the vehicle passes without incident.
The 12-person autonomous shuttle is the brainchild of French entrepreneur Gilbert Gagnaire, founder and chief executive of start-up EasyMile. Gagnaire, a long-term resident of Singapore, says the inspiration came to him during long hours spent in traffic jams in Europe and Asia.
“I’m a city guy, but even I need my space. Wherever you go, there are just too many cars,” he says.
His vision is fleets of driverless shuttles serving the first and the last mile of a passenger’s journey, smoothing the transition between home, work and traditional transport stops.
EasyMile has been trialling the EZ10 in more than 50 locations around the world since April 2015. This year the company attracted €14m funding from transport specialist Alstom.
Alstom is better known for its expertise in the light and heavy rail sectors, from the Pendolino trains on the UK west coast mainline to tram networks in Dublin, Nottingham and Dubai. Its investment in start-ups such as EasyMile is illustration of the company’s widening scope and ambition: to create a more seamless travel experience for passengers via more integrated transport networks.
“We see our role as offering mobility solutions to a world in profound transformation,” says Alstom chairman and chief executive, Henri Poupart-Lafarge.
He adds that, in the age of the smartphone, passengers are expecting more than ever before. They want fluid journeys with minimal waiting time. They want to travel in comfort, using real-time data to decide on their best options. They want to live in cleaner, less polluted cities.
Alstom’s new Optimet range of products, developed by Metrolab - a joint venture between Alstom and France’s state-owned operator RATP - has been designed with digital natives in mind. It includes an intelligent metro map, OrbanMap, which provides realtime information on network activity, showing the location of trains and crowding levels. Another innovation is a real-time train occupancy system - a colour-coded digital board running the length of a platform – indicating the best place to stand for the emptiest carriages.
For operators, Alstom has developed Mastria, a multimodal supervision system that analyses traffic flows across road, metro, bus, rail and tram networks. Mastria uses big data analysis to help operators rapidly respond to events. For example, if there is a major sporting event, bad weather, or a train breaks down, more buses could be automatically dispatched to ease crowded hotspots.
However, the bigger challenge facing cities is how to reduce road congestion and improve air quality.
Take London, ranked the seventh most gridlocked city in 2016 by INRIX. It breached its annual air pollution limits within the first five days of 2017. In response, Mayor Sadiq Khan has launched low emission bus zones and is proposing the world’s first ultra-low emissions zone from 2019. Other cities have gone further: Paris, Madrid, Mexico City and Athens are banning diesel vehicles by 2025.
Paris, which runs a bus fleet of 4,500, will be releasing its first tenders for electric-powered buses at the end of this year. Alstom is one of seven hopefuls running trials in the city. Its prototype is the 100% electric powered Aptis. As Alstom’s first non-rail vehicle, Aptis takes inspiration from trams: it has a low floor-plate that does not require a ramp for wheelchair access. The wheels are at the very outside of the body, maximising internal space. They can even all pivot towards the pavement together, allowing the bus to move sideways like a crab.
But the EZ10 shuttle is probably Alstom’s most intriguing venture. Gagnaire believes that it could complement traditional bus and tram routes, operating across a denser network of neighbourhood streets and summoned by smartphone app.
“Our vision is that there could be an EZ10 stop less than 100m from [a resident’s] doorstep,” he adds.
EasyMile has run trials in 14 countries, including Japan, the USA, Singapore, Dubai and Australia. Trials have run both in dedicated lanes and in mixed traffic. Gagnaire says that although the EZ10 can be a little slow for other drivers – the top speed is around 40mph - not a single accident has been reported.
He adds that passengers have not expressed concerns that the vehicle is driverless, although all trials so far have human conductors on board. Passengers may be reassured by the shuttle’s six lasers that act as “eyes”, detecting obstacles from a 40m distance, as well as the constant feed of data to a control centre.
But Alstom’s Jean-Marc Pagliero says that the transition from trials to full commissioning depends on how quickly governments adapt their transport legislation to the new technology. He estimates that this could take three to five years, predicting that autonomous shuttles on risk-assessed routes will achieve approval faster than driverless cars.
“The technology is ready. The market will open when the regulatory frameworks are defined,” he adds.
Content on this page is paid for and produced to a brief agreed with Alstom, a sponsor of the Public Leaders Network.
