The companies announced their partnership Monday during a news conference at CES19 in Las Vegas, with accompanying video showing on-road testing in France.
Torc is licensing its Asimov self-driving software stack and sensor suite architecture for the i-Cristal autonomous shuttle. The partners agree that shuttles and smaller vehicles will provide complementary mobility to existing public transportation networks around the world. The shuttles also provide an ideal opportunity to introduce autonomous vehicles into public use.
The partners have already begun testing on closed courses, while testing on public roads will proceed after obtaining successive safety authorizations and before providing public service trials in two locations in France: Paris-Saclay and Rouen.
In Paris-Saclay, the shuttles will operate in a dedicated lane offering a shared-ride mobility service at night and off-peak hours between the Massy transit station and the Paris-Saclay campus. In Rouen, the shuttles will operate on public roads offering a shared-ride mobility service throughout the business park and connecting to the tramway station.
The objective is to integrate fleets of autonomous i-Cristal shuttles into existing Transdev public transportation networks as a complement to extend the geographical coverage or time schedule.
Source : Transdev
