A consortium of companies has been selected to form the ULTIMO project, which is financed by the European Commission and the Federal Government of Switzerland to help accelerate the large-scale deployment of autonomous shuttles.
ULTIMO succeeds the AVENUE project, which was launched in May 2018. Throughout the project, thirteen NAVYA shuttles were trialled in six European cities: Lyon, Luxembourg, Geneva, Copenhagen, Esch-sur-Alzette and Sion to demonstrate how self-driving shuttles could be integrated into a city’s existing public transport system.
Following the success of these AVENUE trials, ULTIMO now intends to widen and commercialise such autonomous operations. ULTIMO brings together industry experts to deploy self-driving shuttles on a large scale, with the aim of providing transportation on demand through a phone application. The project also plans to conduct trials of a multi-fleet management system.
Sophie Desormiere, CEO of NAVYA said:ULTIMO builds on the experience and success of the AVENUE project and backs up the dominant role self-driving shuttles will play in the public transportation offer. Our shuttles will be deployed in urban environments in user-centric conditions based on operational models that are both commercially viable and sustainable. This is a crucial step that marks the transition from experimentation to the deployment of our shuttles on a large scale. Furthermore, it is the first time that an autonomous mobility deployment project brings together autonomous solution providers and large fleet managers to work together and offer common solutions and interfaces for operators of public transportation. Our team will play its part in making ULTIMO a success for NAVYA and for the development of sustainable autonomous mobility.
The ULTIMO project will conduct NAVYA’s largest self-driving shuttle deployment in Europe, with the potential to deploy up to 45 vehicles in three European cities over the next four years.
