- Here's a tip.
If you live in California
and you're late to work,
blame the robo bus.
(light music)
Near the San Francisco Bay Area
there is a city called San Ramon.
The population is around 74,000 people.
It's about 25 miles east
of Oakland, California
and soon something will
set this community apart
from other cities in America.
It's getting driverless robotic buses.
These buses won't be used as school buses
or municipal transportation,
at least not at first.
They'll be used to move passengers around
business parks and parking lots.
The buses, known as the
EZ10 driverless vehicle,
come from a French
company called Easymile.
The buses can hold up to 12 passengers
and include space inside for
wheelchairs or strollers.
An electric battery provides power.
an EZ10 vehicle can operate for 12 hours
on an eight-hour battery charge.
They have a top speed of
40 kilometers per hour.
The company is French, remember?
So in good ole U-S-of-A terms,
that's about 25 miles per hour,
and cruising speed is about half that.
The buses will follow a
pre-programmed pathway,
which means they won't
need to plot a route.
They are also equipped with
sensors in all directions
to help the buses avoid
obstacles and collisions.
Cities in Switzerland and Finland
have already deployed the EZ10.
Soon, the buses will be
cruising in not only California
but also Singapore.
The goal is to provide safe,
clean, reliable transportation.
It could be that we'll start
seeing more autonomous vehicles
like these take over
transportation services.
Maybe we'll even shift so that
personal vehicle ownership
becomes increasingly rare
as we rely more heavily
on fleets of robotic taxis and buses.
At the very least, I think
we can be reasonably certain
that if a robo bus fails
to wait for a passenger
running up to the bus stop in the rain,
it's not feeling any perverse
sense of glee about it.
Okay, enough about my emotional scars
and unfortunate encounters
will public transportation.
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