It’s 2 August 2024 and the Bonn University Hospitals had invited visitors to the main entrance: Two autonomous EasyMile EZ 10 minibuses (“BN-UK 74” and “BN-UK 75”), which will be operating a circular route around the university hospital with immediate effect, will be unveiled. The service is completely free of charge and operates seven days a week from 7 a.m. in the morning until 4.30 p.m. in the afternoon.
The reason for these service times is obvious: in the (early) morning, patients arrive who are newly admitted as inpatients, and at around 4.30 pm the last visitors who have visited patients here usually leave the extensive grounds of the university hospital. The two “shuttles” can then return to their parking bay with a clear conscience. This is because they run on electricity and therefore have to recharge their batteries for use the next day. From 4.30 p.m. to 7.00 a.m. the next morning: that’s plenty of time for recharging.
The operating concept
Bonn’s university hospitals are now offering a convenient check-in service. The patient registers the evening before admission to hospital. The hospital control centre allocates a parking space for their car and one of the two EasyMile shuttles picks them up from there and takes them to their clinic on the extensive campus. This is because Bonn University Hospital is around two kilometres long from north to south and several hundred metres wide from east to west. Who – especially if they don’t know their way around – would want to “fumble” their way through this alone?
As soon as these tasks have been completed, the two shuttles set off on their circular route through the site. This has the shape of an (elongated) circle with two longer “appendages”. It starts at the main entrance to the Eye and Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic, runs via the “Emergency Centre” to the “Main Gate” of the University Clinics, serves the stops “Unikliniken Hauptpforte” and “Uniklinikum Süd” on lines 601, 630, 632 and 634 of Bonn’s public transport company SWB, then travels to the “Nervenklinik”, turns here and returns to the “Augenklinik” via the city bus stops “Uinikliniken Süd”, “Frauenklinik”, “Hauptpforte” and “Notfallzentrum”. It is important that the two small shuttles serve the stops of the city buses and thus ensure the “fine distribution” of people on the clinic campus.
The round trip from the eye clinic back to the eye clinic takes 23 minutes. There is no defined timetable for the two shuttles, but as they travel in pairs, there should be a shuttle every 11.5 minutes or so. Ideally, when one of the shuttles is at the eye clinic, its “twin” will be at the opposite end at the mental hospital. Daily operation will show how well the 11.5-minute interval works and whether and how often the second shuttle catches up with its “twin”.
About the EasyMile EZ 10
Both EasyMile EZ 10s could travel at 40 km/h due to their design. Technically no problem. But the legislators, both European and German, are much more cautious. In areas where many people are travelling on foot, the two little ones are “only” allowed to travel at 8 km/h. On the wide road between the large bus stops “Uniklinikum Hauptpforte” and “Uniklinikum Süd”, the speed limit is twice as high, namely 16 km/h. The same 16 km/h is permitted on the long straight stretch past the Women’s Hospital. You can tell when the little one is “going full steam ahead”.
The EasyMile EZ 10 is steered on all four wheels. If the front wheels turn to the left, the rear wheels turn to the right. This ensures that the EZ 10 can also negotiate tight roundabouts correctly and does not have to use marked-off areas.
Both EZ 10 have “learnt” their route. Thanks to GPS, they know where they are on their route, where it goes to the right or left, where a stop is – where they might have to stop -, they recognise the pedestrian zebra crossing and they recognise whether a pedestrian is walking in front of them, for example. No problem: the EZ 10 adapts its speed to that of the pedestrian. This is all done with the help of radars and lidars that the EZ 10 has on board. They are located at the four corners of the car and on its roof. The latter gives it a complete 360° overview of the small shuttle.
The two EZ 10 can carry 12 passengers each. There are three seats behind the front window and three in front of the rear window, making a total of six, while six more passengers can travel standing up.
European and German legislators still require an “operator” to travel on board of the vehicle for safety reasons. However, the operator on the demonstration ride, on which the author travelled, said that in the USA, such autonomous shuttles have long been travelling completely on their own, and there is no longer any question of an operator. So the question is: do we really need to be so scared in Europe? After all, that’s what the legislator wants.
So what does the operator have to do? Well, he carries a console on a strap around his neck, with which he can control all the functions of the little one. This starts with steering – the little one can do this on its own, but perhaps there is a reason for the operator to intervene. He can accelerate and, of course, brake. And as we have already seen: the EZ 10 recognises zebra crossings and its stops, and if nobody tells it otherwise, it stops there. However, the operator can give it the order not to stop, but to drive through. And if the little one has stopped, the operator must “tell” him to drive off again. If this signal did not come from the console, the shuttle would stop on the spot.
In Monheim between Cologne and Düsseldorf, the “Bahnen der Stadt Monheim” have been operating their city bus line “A 01” with five EasyMile EZ 10s since spring 2020, UTM reported here: https://www.urban-transport-magazine.com/en/autonomous-minibus-in-monheim/
Technical data on the EasyMile EZ 10
- Manufacturer: EasyMile, Toulouse, France
- Length: 4,050 mm
- Width: 1,892 mm
- Height: 2,871 mm
- Passenger capacity: 12 passengers, including 6 seats
- Electrically operated wheelchair ramp, loadable up to 350 kg
- Battery capacity for up to 14 operating hours
- Recharging over night at the depot via cable and CCS combo plug
- Unladen weight: 2,130 kg
- Permissible total weight: 3,130 kg
including 4 battery packs and air conditioning, i.e. a payload of one tonne - autonomous according to level 4 (= an operator still has to drive along)
