2022 was the year that Bax spin-off Pendel’s autonomous mobility service hit the road and showed public authorities and site operators what autonomous vehicles can really do.
On a sunny morning in May 2022, a bus drove its passengers from the car park of the Port of Barcelona’s headquarters to the doors of the offices.
It was the first journey performed by a non-human driver on a public Barcelona road since the era of horse-powered transport, and was organised, coordinated and operated by Pendel Mobility.
A few months later, bus drivers were relieved from the quiet hours of a monotonous route between a train station and a university campus. Their substitute? An EasyMile shuttle operated by Regiobus and supported by Pendel Mobility.
“2022 was the year that Pendel’s autonomous mobility service hit the road and showed public authorities and site operators what autonomous vehicles can really do.” said Christian Riester, Co-Founder of Pendel Mobility.
“Our experiences assembling the people and technology for effective autonomous deployments accelerated a lot this year” said Giel Mertens, Co-Founder of Pendel Mobility. “We can’t wait to see where 2023 will take us”.
To mark the end of a successful year of operation, the Pendel team sat down to reflect on the key milestones and lessons learned in 2022.
Below they share their highlights, and thank the partners that made it all possible.
Launching the first autonomous vehicle on public roads in Barcelona
In May 2022, the workers of the Port of Barcelona offices met a new driver. For four weeks, Pendel ran an autonomous shuttle in between the Port’s car park and office building, completing 375 trips.
“The Barcelona deployment was a huge undertaking. Getting the permits, regulation, route planning, and partner coordination right for an autonomous vehicle pilot was a real logistical challenge,” said Christian.
“It was the ideal test of Pendel’s capabilities as a service integrator, as we worked with both technology and policy partners to make the pilot project a success”.
“The Barcelona pilot showed us that any autonomous vehicle project needs close collaboration between a wide variety of partners. We were grateful for the enthusiastic support of the Port of Barcelona, the vehicle safety operator team from Alsa, the vehicle provider EasyMile, and Spanish road policy body DGT”, said Giel.
The deployment picked up local and national press attention, and was featured in the newspaper La Vanguardia, TV news channel 3/24, and popular social media channel Barcelona Secreta among others.
“The Port of Barcelona deployment was a great opportunity not only to test how the technology would react to the environment, but also how society would react to the technology” said Sami Angsthelm from the Pendel Mobility team.
“The feedback we received from partners, users, and the general public online showed us that perception of the technology needs to be factored into any autonomous vehicle deployment. The need to manage expectations of what autonomous vehicles can do, as well as public anxieties about the rise of job-destroying robot cars, is a key learning we’ll be taking into our 2023 deployments”.
Relieving bus drivers from a monotonous route in Hannover
In August of 2022, Pendel deployed an EasyMile shuttle for our clients at the Region of Hannover, servicing the last mile service between a tram stop and the Hannover Garbsen university campus. The deployment was part of the EU-funded Interreg project PAV (Planning for Autonomous Vehicles)
“The route between a tram station and the University of Hannover Garbsen campus is a monotonous trip that is mostly empty outside of peak hours. When German transport operator Regiobus approached us, they were forced to swap out bus drivers every 90 minutes to fight the tedium, and they were struggling to hire replacements” Giel noted.
To relieve bus drivers for more challenging, in-demand routes, Pendel supported an autonomous service during the quiet hours of the day, shuttling students from tram station to campus and back again.
“It was promising to see how autonomous vehicles could be used to improve working conditions for bus drivers in our Hannover deployment” said Sami.
“A lesson for 2023 is that we need to communicate the upside of autonomous vehicles. The public discussion about autonomous technology has been understandably anxious, so we need to show the positive side of autonomous vehicles for operators, drivers and passengers.”
“Again, our deployment in Hannover was only possible thanks to the support of the Region of Hannover, Regiobus, and EasyMile, our vehicle provider for the deployment. The Region of Hannover were especially helpful in expediting the permissions required to get the autonomous vehicle deployed on the ground. Having all partners on board – especially policy partners – makes the difference between a smooth operation and a stalling failure” said Christian.
Launching Pendel’s insight guide to autonomous vehicle deployment
“Our deployments for 2022 made one thing very clear for us: Mobility managers and site operators need to start their autonomous vehicle roadmap today to capture the value AV will offer in the next ten years” said Giel.
“That’s why we published Deploying your first autonomous vehicle, a detailed breakdown of our Barcelona deployment. The insight guide will help mobility managers – public and private – to understand the steps involved in setting up an autonomous vehicle pilot and gives some of the most promising use cases we see for the future of autonomous vehicles”.
Download the PDF guide here.
Sharing our learnings with autonomous vehicle innovators
From Tomorrow Mobility World Congress to the Transport Research Arena, the Pendel team shared their learnings from deployments at some of Europe’s biggest mobility conferences in 2022.
“Autonomous technology and business planning is still far from perfect. There are issues in ride quality, regulation and financial viability. That’s why sharing knowledge with other innovators driving the future of reliable, cost-effective mobility services is so important”. said Giel.
“We are fortunate to work with some amazing EU projects that enable us to participate in these arenas for discussion and knowledge sharing. Our participation in Ride2Autonomy has been particularly helpful in this respect. We got the chance to present alongside some other initiatives focusing on making a people-centric autonomous future, including the WeTransform initiative” said Christian.
“We learnt a lot in 2022. The importance of engaging all partners through planning, deployment and evaluation; the need to get the public involved in the debate; and the limitations of the technology itself. We’re ready to put this knowledge to use improving our service for 2023!” reflected Christian.
Learn more about Pendel
From the highlands of Scotland to the Port of Barcelona, we have supported more than 70 public and private mobility managers to understand, plan and deploy pilots for automated and demand-responsive public transport. If you’re interested in collaborating, get in touch!
