> May 25 (Reuters) - A self-driving bus made by Turkey's Karsan (KARSN.IS), opens new tab was struck from behind by a tram in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Monday, just an hour after it began carrying paying passengers, the public transport organiser said.
"The Karsan Autonomous e-ATAK is automated by ADASTEC’s SAE Level-4 automated driving software platform, flowride.ai, which combines perception, localization, and planning modules to make real-time decisions with high reliability. A comprehensive sensor suite, including LiDAR, radar, RGB cameras, and GNSS, continuously captures and fuses environmental and infrastructure data to enable accurate navigation in dynamic urban conditions. The system’s predictive algorithms anticipate the behavior of pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicles, while the planning module generates safe, smooth trajectories for the vehicle, ensuring passenger comfort and operational safety.
The vehicle is equipped with V2X communication capabilities for potential future integration with city infrastructure, enhancing situational awareness and supporting smart city initiatives. Teleoperation support is available through a dedicated control center operated by Vy Buss, allowing authorized operators to remotely intervene in rare cases such as unexpected obstacles or deviations from the planned route. This additional layer of oversight reinforces operational reliability and passenger safety."
Rather disingenuous to say the bus crashed with a tram when it was crashed into by a tram. There might be a genuine concern here about buses and trams sharing dedicated paths or the lack of collision detection and automatic breaking on the trams, but nope, lets insinuate self driving was the problem.
Rather disingenuous to call slamming on the brakes "it was crashed into". Rule #1 of the road is to be predictable -- if a human slammed on their brakes and caused a crash on their first day of driving, they shouldn't be driving either.
From the article:
> The self-driving bus, with passengers onboard in Gothenburg, braked suddenly and was hit from behind by a tram.
At least over here if you rear end someone you are legally responsible. Vehicles can stop suddenly for all sorts of reasons, even good ones. Slamming on your brakes doesn't cause a rear end collision; tailgating or distraction causes rear end collisions.
If I have to slam the brakes on to avoid hitting a pedestrian, you can be damned sure I will. If you're driving so close to me as not to be able to stop in the space between us, that's on you.
You (and every other commenter over the years peddling the same garbage) are taking simplified rules of financial liability and then working backwards to get the rules of the road. You can't run it in that direction because the rules are intentionally simplified and lose resolution for the sake of expedience.
No traffic behaves like you're acting it ought to except industrial applications where some other thing dominates vehicle spacing. Following distances are set at like the 90-somethingth percentile and then other techniques are used to mitigate those last few percent.
For example in your intentional appeal to emotion pedestrian example, the other traffic is not just looking at the back of your car. It's maintaining situational awareness of "issues" coming from other directions like your pedestrian presumably coming from the side. So other cars will probably start braking around the same time as you and 90-something percent of the time there won't be any issue.
In cases without obvious external inputs humans use stereotype and vibes based judgement. When drivers see a Fiat 500 (or some other minimum viable appliance car) adorned with one of those student driver stickers everyone gets on Amazon going down an on-ramp at "this is gonna make for a spicy merge at best" speed other drivers subconsciously think "this guy is probably a bad driver, I bet he's gonna screw it up and come to a stop at the end of the ramp and just expect other traffic to deal" so they back off to maintain their "good enough" following distance.
Fielding a bunch of vehicles that are too hair trigger when it comes to hard-ish stopping is basically just exploiting intentional lack of nuance in our rules of financial liability. A "self driving car" that drives like a 16yo with a learners permit is self driving. We require those people be supervised specifically to minimize these sorts of things.
Additionally drivers who drive in such a manner (we all know someone who insists they're good driver despite being the common denominator in a lot of accidents insurance found not their fault) as to exploit the same lack pretty strong vested interest in that nobody exploit those rules at scale because that could result the rules be changed to have more nuance.
The self driving vehicle's behavior is not excusable even if they didn't wind up paying the bill for it and arguing otherwise is mis-informed at best.
So, by definition, driver of a tram is guilty for the accident the same way the driver would be if he had run into another vehicle. Tram hit the bus from behind.
Except trams have, as far as I know without exception, specific traffic rules around them. A tram simply does not and cannot stop as quickly as a car (or indeed a bus) can. The reason that that's largely accepted is because the tradeoff is also that a tram can't really make any sudden unexpected motions at all.
If you get hit by a tram it is because you are in a place where you should have known the tram would hit you. The things are on tracks.
local tram drivers union representative from Goteborg where it happened:
"The question is whether, for example, they’ve entered the correct right-of-way rules for trams? All vehicles are required to yield to trams, with a few exceptions, and that could be what’s “triggering” the system,"
Seems there are not really more information about what caused the accident and why the tram crashed into the bus from behind, but it happened on the straight road reserved only for trams and buses so there is no reason why tram should crash there into bus unless it suddenly stopped. Also after the crash the bus continued driving for few meters instead of stopping immediately. I've found only video after crash in this article[1]:
"The bus reportedly had only one regular passenger, but several Västtrafik employees were on board for the inaugural trip. It will now be driven back to the depot to be inspected and possibly repaired."
I checked also paywalled Swedish newspaper Goteborg Posten (thanks to my library in PressReader), but nothing else really, just some opinion of tram union guy since tram hit the bus:
"The question is whether, for example, they’ve entered the correct right-of-way rules for trams? All vehicles are required to yield to trams, with a few exceptions, and that could be what’s “triggering” the system, he says.
– We can’t change our rules just because a vehicle like that is coming. It’s the other vehicles—the buses—that have to adapt and take into account that trams don’t follow the same rules as they do,” Sandholm continues.
He can’t say for certain how the accident happened, but he finds it remarkable that it occurred on Aschebergsgatan, a straight stretch of road with lanes reserved exclusively for buses and trams.
“I think that suggests no proper risk analysis was conducted regarding what happens when, for example, a self-driving bus suddenly stops on a tram route. And such a risk analysis must, of course, be conducted in collaboration with the tram drivers who operate on that route,” he says.
“Yes, it’s clear that this is something that needs to be addressed immediately, so that’s good. But sending a vehicle out into traffic that could come to a sudden stop on a route where no other traffic is supposed to be moving... Well, this shouldn’t have happened,” says Magnus Sandholm."
Are they not going to tell us which company's self-driving tech was installed on the bus? That seems like very relevant info.
> May 25 (Reuters) - A self-driving bus made by Turkey's Karsan (KARSN.IS), opens new tab was struck from behind by a tram in Gothenburg, Sweden, on Monday, just an hour after it began carrying paying passengers, the public transport organiser said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/turkeys-karsan-self-driving-bu...
I believe it is this one, I was able to find this via google search.
It was ADASTEC’s autonomous-driving tech- specifically its flowride.ai SAE Level-4 automated driving software platform. It’s a Turkish company.
the bus model is Karsan e-ATAK, but not sure who provides self-driving tech for them, if it's their own in-house tech or third party
https://www.karsan.com/en
"The Karsan Autonomous e-ATAK is automated by ADASTEC’s SAE Level-4 automated driving software platform, flowride.ai, which combines perception, localization, and planning modules to make real-time decisions with high reliability. A comprehensive sensor suite, including LiDAR, radar, RGB cameras, and GNSS, continuously captures and fuses environmental and infrastructure data to enable accurate navigation in dynamic urban conditions. The system’s predictive algorithms anticipate the behavior of pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicles, while the planning module generates safe, smooth trajectories for the vehicle, ensuring passenger comfort and operational safety.
The vehicle is equipped with V2X communication capabilities for potential future integration with city infrastructure, enhancing situational awareness and supporting smart city initiatives. Teleoperation support is available through a dedicated control center operated by Vy Buss, allowing authorized operators to remotely intervene in rare cases such as unexpected obstacles or deviations from the planned route. This additional layer of oversight reinforces operational reliability and passenger safety."
https://www.adastec.com/automated-bus/gothenburg-automated-b...
that's a horrible accident. I hope they will do more test before launching in Stockholm!
Rather disingenuous to say the bus crashed with a tram when it was crashed into by a tram. There might be a genuine concern here about buses and trams sharing dedicated paths or the lack of collision detection and automatic breaking on the trams, but nope, lets insinuate self driving was the problem.
Rather disingenuous to call slamming on the brakes "it was crashed into". Rule #1 of the road is to be predictable -- if a human slammed on their brakes and caused a crash on their first day of driving, they shouldn't be driving either.
From the article:
> The self-driving bus, with passengers onboard in Gothenburg, braked suddenly and was hit from behind by a tram.
At least over here if you rear end someone you are legally responsible. Vehicles can stop suddenly for all sorts of reasons, even good ones. Slamming on your brakes doesn't cause a rear end collision; tailgating or distraction causes rear end collisions.
If I have to slam the brakes on to avoid hitting a pedestrian, you can be damned sure I will. If you're driving so close to me as not to be able to stop in the space between us, that's on you.
>paraphrased: "muh safe following distance"
You (and every other commenter over the years peddling the same garbage) are taking simplified rules of financial liability and then working backwards to get the rules of the road. You can't run it in that direction because the rules are intentionally simplified and lose resolution for the sake of expedience.
No traffic behaves like you're acting it ought to except industrial applications where some other thing dominates vehicle spacing. Following distances are set at like the 90-somethingth percentile and then other techniques are used to mitigate those last few percent.
For example in your intentional appeal to emotion pedestrian example, the other traffic is not just looking at the back of your car. It's maintaining situational awareness of "issues" coming from other directions like your pedestrian presumably coming from the side. So other cars will probably start braking around the same time as you and 90-something percent of the time there won't be any issue.
In cases without obvious external inputs humans use stereotype and vibes based judgement. When drivers see a Fiat 500 (or some other minimum viable appliance car) adorned with one of those student driver stickers everyone gets on Amazon going down an on-ramp at "this is gonna make for a spicy merge at best" speed other drivers subconsciously think "this guy is probably a bad driver, I bet he's gonna screw it up and come to a stop at the end of the ramp and just expect other traffic to deal" so they back off to maintain their "good enough" following distance.
Fielding a bunch of vehicles that are too hair trigger when it comes to hard-ish stopping is basically just exploiting intentional lack of nuance in our rules of financial liability. A "self driving car" that drives like a 16yo with a learners permit is self driving. We require those people be supervised specifically to minimize these sorts of things.
Additionally drivers who drive in such a manner (we all know someone who insists they're good driver despite being the common denominator in a lot of accidents insurance found not their fault) as to exploit the same lack pretty strong vested interest in that nobody exploit those rules at scale because that could result the rules be changed to have more nuance.
The self driving vehicle's behavior is not excusable even if they didn't wind up paying the bill for it and arguing otherwise is mis-informed at best.
So, by definition, driver of a tram is guilty for the accident the same way the driver would be if he had run into another vehicle. Tram hit the bus from behind.
Melbourne, a city with intermingled trams on rails and cars, has pretty clear rules here:
* You must not drive into the path of a moving tram, drive over raised dividing strips or cross double yellow lines.
* You must not drive on tramways and tram lanes, unless you need to avoid an obstacle, or drive on the tram lane to make a right turn.
etc.
Trams have right of way - full stop.
https://transport.vic.gov.au/road-and-active-transport/road-...
Except trams have, as far as I know without exception, specific traffic rules around them. A tram simply does not and cannot stop as quickly as a car (or indeed a bus) can. The reason that that's largely accepted is because the tradeoff is also that a tram can't really make any sudden unexpected motions at all.
If you get hit by a tram it is because you are in a place where you should have known the tram would hit you. The things are on tracks.
local tram drivers union representative from Goteborg where it happened:
"The question is whether, for example, they’ve entered the correct right-of-way rules for trams? All vehicles are required to yield to trams, with a few exceptions, and that could be what’s “triggering” the system,"
Seems there are not really more information about what caused the accident and why the tram crashed into the bus from behind, but it happened on the straight road reserved only for trams and buses so there is no reason why tram should crash there into bus unless it suddenly stopped. Also after the crash the bus continued driving for few meters instead of stopping immediately. I've found only video after crash in this article[1]:
"The bus reportedly had only one regular passenger, but several Västtrafik employees were on board for the inaugural trip. It will now be driven back to the depot to be inspected and possibly repaired."
[1] https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/sjalvkorande-buss-i-k...
I checked also paywalled Swedish newspaper Goteborg Posten (thanks to my library in PressReader), but nothing else really, just some opinion of tram union guy since tram hit the bus:
"The question is whether, for example, they’ve entered the correct right-of-way rules for trams? All vehicles are required to yield to trams, with a few exceptions, and that could be what’s “triggering” the system, he says.
– We can’t change our rules just because a vehicle like that is coming. It’s the other vehicles—the buses—that have to adapt and take into account that trams don’t follow the same rules as they do,” Sandholm continues.
He can’t say for certain how the accident happened, but he finds it remarkable that it occurred on Aschebergsgatan, a straight stretch of road with lanes reserved exclusively for buses and trams.
“I think that suggests no proper risk analysis was conducted regarding what happens when, for example, a self-driving bus suddenly stops on a tram route. And such a risk analysis must, of course, be conducted in collaboration with the tram drivers who operate on that route,” he says.
“Yes, it’s clear that this is something that needs to be addressed immediately, so that’s good. But sending a vehicle out into traffic that could come to a sudden stop on a route where no other traffic is supposed to be moving... Well, this shouldn’t have happened,” says Magnus Sandholm."