Autonomous buses in Bad Birnbach will soon no longer be running

The autonomous buses in rural Bad Birnbach in Bavaria were a revolutionary project. But that is over for the time being. Vehicle manufacturer EasyMile wants to withdraw completely from the passenger transportation sector in the course of 2025 and focus on the logistics sector in the area of airports and shipping ports in future.

Discussions with EasyMile have revealed that the personnel required to service and support the shuttles at EasyMile are only available to a very limited extent, if at all, according to the local district office. That's why the autonomous buses will soon be coming to an end: operation will end on December 31, 2024.

Driving only under supervision

The project started seven years ago with one vehicle within the local area; in October 2019, the network was completed with the station outside. As the district administration office emphasizes, the service has been very well received locally. From May 2022, the "HEAL" project was added, a research project in which Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität was also involved. From then on, three vehicles were in operation and there was an on-demand service within Bad Birnbach with 20 digital stops.

Due to legal requirements, attendants, so-called operators, were on board until the end. It was always hoped that control of the autonomous vehicles would eventually be transferred to a control center. However, the necessary legal changes were a long time coming. There were also calls for further technical development. Instead of the current level 3 – with operator – the next step would be to upgrade the shuttles to level 4, i.e. to drive much faster under the supervision of a control center –.

Funding problems and an unclear future

Funding from the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport ended in June 2023. For the next six months, all costs were borne by the district, the market and RBO GmbH. The project recently received around half a million fractional funds via a member of the state parliament, which would have ensured operation beyond 2024. Operating the vehicles would cost the district of Rottal-Inn and the market town of Bad Birnbach around €342,000 per year.

However, District Administrator Michael Fahmüller and Mayor Dagmar Feicht want to find a new project partner so that the autonomous buses can roll through Bad Birnbach again. However, the district administrator says that this will first require a federal budget and a new funding program.

For now, the figures for the project remain: from October 2017 to September 2024, 123,163 kilometers were covered in autonomous operation. In the process, 110,774 people were transported, 12,646 of them in on-demand operation, for which 24,321 kilometers were covered.

(nen)