Two mini-bussesTU Ilmenau/Michael Reichel
Two driverless bus shuttles will connect the Ilmenau train station and the TU Ilmenau campus

On June 1, the two driverless shuttle buses of IOV Omnibusverkehr GmbH Ilmenau started regular service. In the future, they will connect the Ilmenau train station and the TU Ilmenau campus on Mondays to Fridays over a distance of 2 kilometers at a maximum speed of 18 kilometers per hour. Boarding is possible at five stops.

The 3rd generation EZ10 minibus from French manufacturer EasyMile GmbH is licensed for six passengers and has an automatic electric wheelchair ramp to provide barrier-free access. This is the first time in Thuringia that highly automated driving has been integrated into the timetable of a passenger transport company.

The CAMIL project of the Ilm district and IOV Omnibusverkehr GmbH Ilmenau, which is funded by the Thuringian Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Nature Conservation, is supported by the City of Ilmenau and scientifically accompanied by various research groups of the TU Ilmenau and the Thüringer Innovationszentrum Mobiliät (ThIMo). The accompanying scientific research is supported by the Thuringian Ministry of Economy, Science & Digital Society.

University President Prof. Kai-Uwe Sattler: "As the president of a technical university, I am happy and proud that together with the city and district, we can bring sustainable future technologies to life for citizens. Not only our university campus and the city of Ilmenau will benefit from the clean, self-driving CAMIL buses; their state-of-the-art technology, I am sure, will have an impact far beyond the region."

MDR Thüringen Journal accompanied the bus on its first trip.

More about CAMIL can be found on the project website www.camil-ilmenau.de/ and at the Ilmenau Science Night on July 1:

At ThIMo, Ehrenbergstraße 15, starting at 6 p.m., we will report every hour on the challenges and technical implementation of automated driving in the area of conflict between what is technically possible and road safety. With insights into the environment detection of a shuttle bus from the project and demonstrations of obstacle detection and hazard braking, we will show the state of the art: www.ilmenauer-wissenschaftsnacht.de/programm