Autonomous post bus gets in accident

The driverless bus started ferrying passengers around the city of Sion in June Keystone

Operation of a driverless post bus in the Swiss city of Sion was suspended after the vehicle crashed into a delivery van on Thursday. No one was injured. 

One window on the post bus broke and the rear door of the van “was slightly damaged,” according to a press release from PostBus, the company which operates the bus. 

The vehicle recently made headlines for becoming the first of its kind in Switzerland and one of the first in the world to transport passengers using robotic technology instead of a driver. However, during Thursday’s incident and as always, a supervisor was on board the shuttle to ensure passenger safety. He was able to manually stop the vehicle following the accident. 

“We are analysing the vehicle’s ‘black boxes’ to know more about what caused the crash,” said Valérie Gerl, a spokesperson for PostBus. 

Until those analyses are complete, Sion’s fleet of two autonomous post buses will not operate. They are part of a pilot project that launched in June and will continue until October 2017.