Bringing autonomous vehicles to Barcelona with Pendel Mobility

On Tuesday the 24th of June, Pendel Mobility launched its first pilot, offering an automated shuttle transport service at the Port of Barcelona! This pilot marks the official a kick-off of Pendel Mobility, as well as the beginning of the Port’s path towards deploying autonomous mobility.

The project in Barcelona aims to transport port workers to and from a parking lot at the Port de Barcelona and the World Trade Center, where the main offices of the Port Authority are located. The pilot has been implemented and operated by Pendel Mobility, collaborating closely with the Innovation team from the Port of Barcelona.

Pendel Mobility is a Bax & Company spinoff, which aims to drive and empower all to benefit from “mobility technologies of the future” easily, safely, and effectively. Pendel’s vision is to complement public transport by providing the next generation of demand-responsive transport with automated shuttles. With the promise to make autonomous mobility a reality, Pendel contributes to decreasing the pressure on urban space while making public transport more efficient, demand-responsive, and safer.

With this first successful pilot at the Port of Barcelona, Pendel Mobility officially demonstrates its capacity to bring autonomous vehicles to reality, in Spain, and throughout Europe. This pilot marks a major milestone for the company, verifying an autonomous mobility service model in a port environment. It also serves as a basis for larger-scale deployments in the future with more vehicles, and other vehicle types (larger buses, facility management, logistics, etc) – in Barcelona, Spain, and beyond.

This pilot would not have been possible without the help of Pendel’s innovation partners: the Port of Barcelona, Ride2Autonomy, EasyMile, ALSA, and Dirección General de Tráfico. Special thanks go to the President of the Port, Damià Calvet i Valera, the General Director of Transport and Mobility of the Generalitat, Mercè Rius Serra.

Mercè Rius Serra, Damià Calvet and Dr Sebastiaan van Herk at the shuttle launch event. 

Press coverage 

The launch event received significant media attention, read more in the following articles from; Time Out Barcelona, La Vanguardia, betevé, CCMA, Via Empresa and El Estrecho Digital.

If you would like to learn more about Pendel Mobility visit the official website or reach out to a member of the team!

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