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A Western Australian insurance group has received global recognition for its automated vehicle trial after the program was reviewed by an international think tank on transport policy issues.
RAC’s Intellibus was given a special mention by the International Transport Forum as they deliberated over the winners of the 2018 Transport Achievement Award.
While New York City won the award for its Vision Zero initiative, the jury commended RAC’s Intellibus program and the company’s “very comprehensive approach to study and prepare the deployment of automated vehicles as part of collective passenger transport.”
Anne Still, RAC’s general manager for public policy, said the achievement was an “important global acknowledgement” of the innovative transport work being done in Western Australia.
“With support from the state and federal governments, the City of South Perth, and the vehicle manufacturer Navya, RAC's automated vehicle trial is helping WA prepare a roadmap for the safe transition to this new technology,” she said.
“The complexity of the RAC Intellibus trial makes it among the most progressive in the world and continues to put WA on the map as a front-runner in the testing of automated vehicle technology.”
At the time of its launch in 2016, the public trial of the RAC Intellibus was the first automated vehicle trial on Australian roads, and has since then travelled 11,000 driverless kilometres, with 97.8 per cent of participants saying a driverless shuttle like the Intellibus could be used as a service in the future.
