Countryside selfdriving vehicles

Public transport in rural areas is not used to the extent it could be. The buses are almost empty when they arrive. In practice, accessibility in rural areas is based more or less entirely on car traffic - which needs to change when the future transport system is to be made more efficient and more equal. The rural area's current local transport has major financial challenges.

By defining the countryside from the individual’s mobility needs we can see that Sweden’s rural areas include villages with a diminishing population where the old, the young and those without a driver’s license could have an improved accessibility through autonomous vehicles. We have also seen that some of the new workplaces will be outside of the major towns, in the countryside, creating a new mobility need between rural and urban areas.

To realise the identified possibilities there is a need for autonomous vehicles to travel at higher speeds and navigate more complex traffic situations than what has been demonstrated in urban pilots. The countryside therefore requires new vehicles while also offering the possibility to demonstrate new functionality. The investment will probably not turn single rural routes into profitable services, rather the system effect will show itself through more attractive inter-state services as they can take the direct route instead of passing through all the villages.

Finally, we have not encountered any demands on more and better digital infrastructure in any of the investigated municipalities. Connectivity and access to positioning data seems adequate for running an autonomous service. However, there are multiple questions regarding how to organize the replacement service when the technology cannot handle the weather, who is responsible for upgrading rural bus stops and how to manage the driver’s other duties when the vehicle is unstaffed.