Mercedes-Benz Future Bus SPECIAL REPORT Mass transit takes the lead in connecting up Public transport systems across the EU are adding more automated features.

Some of the most cutting-edge work on connected and self-driving technology is happening on bus, tram and subway systems across Europe.

The goal now is to link all of them into a seamless network that cuts travel time, costs and pollution.

Take London, where the city's 9,000 buses can send and receive information on location, schedules and driver performance back to one of 42 local control rooms around the capital and a central hub run by the city's transit operator Transport for London (TfL).

From his control room, Simon Reed, head of bus systems and technology at TfL, can plot the course of each bus and determine everything from a vehicle's speed to stop times. “That gives us a tremendous feeling for how the road network is running,” he said.

Big data like this allows TfL to regulate intervals between buses, ending that bane of commuters: long waits followed by clumps of buses. It also helps cut pollution — a key election pledge of Mayor Sadiq Khan. TfL does this by making sure buses keep moving instead of idling in traffic, spewing out CO2. It will soon also tell passengers when the air is particularly bad via onboard screens.

Traffic management

Reed said traffic lights at 2,500 intersections are now equipped with sensors that receive a short-wave signal from an approaching bus. During the 2012 Olympics, London tested a system that kept lights green for traffic in and out of the Olympic village. In all, the city already has more than 7,000 sensors out on roads.

"The question is whether or not we allow the traffic light to respond to it. It is working [and] it works fine," Reed said. The rate of congestion and how TfL programs its algorithm at any given time determines how much priority, if any, is given to buses.

The next stage for traffic light communication is adding the ability to determine how full each bus is, Reed said. This would prioritize packed buses while holding empty ones back to pick up more commuters. TfL is already working on a system that uses onboard cameras to determine how many seats are free for display to boarding passengers; it's only a matter of time before that data is transmitted too.

"For the bus to talk to the traffic lights and for the passenger to see on a map in a consumer-friendly way where that bus is at that moment and make a judgement of when that will arrive is the next step," said Tim Rigley from Trapeze Group U.K., which works on intelligent transport system technology for urban transport operators.

More automation

Interconnection also has a role to play in mass transit safety.

Two London bus routes were equipped with an automated speed control system this year that keeps the vehicles under the local speed limit via GPS signal. TfL said it worked 97 percent of the time, with downhill momentum the only thing pushing buses over the limit.

Reed said this is an example of new geolocation technology likely to be rolled out across the city to cut road deaths and pointed to automatic braking as the next step in the chain of innovation. Pulling that data together with information on pollution, traffic volumes and pollution rates helps TfL's central control room spot bottlenecks or hotspots for road accidents.

"With London, there are lots of separate systems that try to talk to each other, and now the game is to try and bring these systems together," Rigley said.

Inside the bus, the driver is also under increasing scrutiny to be more and more efficient. New vehicles on some London routes also sound an alarm if the driver brakes sharply or goes over a certain speed, delivering that message back to the boss by the time the driver reaches the depot.

"We sometimes feel like we are being spied on all the time," said one London bus driver, who asked that his name not be used.

The end goal is to move more people more quickly around the EU's largest city — and save money doing it. Labor accounts for about 70 percent of the operating costs of many mass transit systems, said Alain Flausch, the former CEO of Brussels metro operator STIB and now secretary-general at global mass transit association UITP.

London is not alone

Similar experiments are taking place in other European cities.

In Germany's Hanover and Frankfurt, trams trialed a combination of cameras and radar to spot obstructions on the tracks.

The head of Daimler’s bus division Hartmut Schick said potential buyers are asking for systems that automate the process of stopping to pick-up passengers, easing wear and tear on vehicles.

“If you have sensors in the engine, you can check online to see if all of the parts are working fine or whether you have to replace them. Also, you can control how the driver is driving, and tell whether he is a cowboy or whether he is a wise man,” Flausch said.

Some transit is going a step further – deploying self-driving vehicles. About 10 percent of Europe's metro lines are already automated.

Daimler ran a self-driving bus with passengers on a 20-kilometer stretch of road this summer between Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and the city of Haarlem. The key to success was having a dedicated lane reserved for buses, reducing the risk of collision with other traffic.

Mines and ports provide good testing grounds too, where fixed transit networks can be built in to ferry workers about.

Martin Lundstedt, the CEO of Swedish bus and truck maker Volvo Group, said the first stages of automated transport would likely need these kind of closed settings. Mines and ports provide good testing grounds too, where fixed transit networks can be built in to ferry workers about, rather than in dynamic urban environments like London.

The experiments show that self-driving technology still isn't ready for widespread adoption. A self-driving minibus deployed in September along a 2.5-kilometer test run in the northern Dutch district of Ooststellingwerf was taken off the road because of fears over potential collisions with cyclists.

In Sion, Switzerland, self-driving minivans that toured the old town for a two-week evaluation period in September had to be taken off the road after a collision with a parked delivery van.

But both trials in Sion and Ooststellingwerf were back on the road after the operators made small adjustments.

This article is part of a POLITICO Special Report: The future of driving.