The New Era involves Autonomous Bus To Lead Public Transportation Sector

Rapid Bus and eMooVit Technology Sdn Bhd has inked an agreement through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which involves the autonomous electric bus pilot project on the Sunway BRT route.

The Sunway route is being preferred as the Proof of Concept (POC) location for this project provides a controlled environment free of traffic issues caused by other vehicles.

Following next, the plan is scheduled to embark from October this year to September 2023.

The Sunway BRT was the world's first all-electric BRT system opened in 2015 serving Bandar Sunway and Subang Jaya, with an interchange to the Kelana Jaya LRT at the USJ7 station.

BYD electric buses currently ply the 5.4km elevated track between Setia Jaya and USJ7 which has seven stops along the way.

"Rapid Bus chose to use this autonomous electric bus technology as one of the initiatives to dignify the public transport sector in line with current technological progress, as well as practice the concept of environmental sustainability" stated by Chief Executive Officer of Rapid Bus, Mr. Muhammad Yazurin Sallij.

"The safety aspects of users and our staff have encouraged Rapid Bus to make the Sunway Line BRT the preferred location, in addition to facilitating the process of regulating this technology trial," said Yazurin.

This pilot programme will evaluate the impact of autonomous electric buses on the urban transportation system in terms of technology, social, and economic factors.

On top of that, it could assess customer experience of optimal bus operation services which focuses on reducing accident rates, operating costs, and workforce dependency.

According to a statement issued by the General Insurance Association of Malaysia recently, more than 80% of road accidents in Malaysia are caused by driver negligence.

''This is very worrying, and our aspiration is that this autonomous electric vehicle technology will be able to reduce human error," commented CEO of eMoovit, Dr. Hairi Zamzuri.

The exchange of the MoU was completed by the Chief Executive Officer of Rapid Bus, Mr. Muhammad Yazurin Sallij and CEO of eMoovit, Dr. Hairi Zamzuri, witnessed by Mr. Hamidi Adam, Deputy Secretary of the Division (Land), Ministry of Transport Malaysia.

Thanks to theStar, the electric bus manufactured by Kinglong could carry up to 25 passengers.