In a historic win for zero-emission transportation, North America's first automated full-size transit buses will soon hit the road in Connecticut-and CTE is excited to play a crucial role.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) was awarded a Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Integrated Mobility Innovation (IMI) grant to deploy three 40-foot battery electric buses with key automation features on the CTfastrak bus rapid transit corridor between New Britain and Hartford, Connecticut. This award is the first step of a broader effort by the FTA to invest in transit automation research and demonstrations.
In the realm of public transit, automation can deliver significant benefits to battery electric buses. Automated driving supervised by a human operator can improve accessibility for disabled and elderly riders, increase energy efficiency from driving, and may offer operational flexibility by eliminating the need for larger 60-foot buses to serve high-ridership routes. The automation capabilities this project aims to demonstrate include steering, precision docking at CTfastrak station platforms, and platooning, which allows one or more driverless buses to follow a human-driven leader bus.
CTE will bridge the gap between technology engineers and the transit agency to ensure this hallmark deployment is a success. CTE will serve as the project manager and provide technical assistance, including route energy modeling. Additional project partners include New Flyer of America and Robotic Research. New Flyer will supply three zero-emission battery-electric buses and work with Robotic Research, the United States Army's largest supplier of ground autonomy, to integrate automated driving features. Both New Flyer and Robotic Research are valued CTE members, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with both companies in this effort.
As we work towards a completely zero-emission transportation sector, we believe automation will increase the effectiveness of clean technologies and ultimately strengthen our fight against climate change. With more than 25 years of experience supporting transit agency deployments of zero-emission buses, CTE is positioned to make this historic win a success for not only CTDOT and its project partners, but to demonstrate the viability of transit bus automation technology for transit agencies across the U.S.
