After the first trials of self-driving public transport in Oslo last year, the local public transport authority Ruter and the mobility company Holo signed an agreement with Toyota Motor Europe and Finnish technology company Sensible 4 to test autonomous vehicle in the suburban environments outside Oslo, more precisely towards the town of Ski in Nordre Follo municipality. The Toyota vehicles retrofitted with Sensible 4’s autonomous driving software will be operated by Holo in a new pilot project that will be launched this autumn.
The new international partnership marks a new chapter of Ruter’s and Holo’s self-driving vehicle trials that tests out autonomous public transportation in Norway. In previous phases of the trials, shuttle buses from the French company NAVYA have been on the routes of Akershusstranda and Ormøya.
“Deploying different vehicles on a new route in Ski is an exciting opportunity for Holo. We aim to build a mobility cloud where individuals subscribe to mobility. With the vehicles from Toyota Motor Europe we can answer a more diverse mobility need,” explains Jakob Münter, Director of Finance and Planning at Holo.
Holo has transported more than 40,000 passengers in autonomous vehicles to this day in pilot projects in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Denmark.
“Today, we see that consumers are increasingly choosing to pay for the trip rather than the vehicle. This is where we see a huge potential,” says Münter.
