Pony.ai and Croatian mobility operator Verne have made a significant milestone in autonomous mobility in Europe by launching fully driverless robotaxi test rides using passengers on public streets in Zagreb. The trialwhich started in early Septemberhas completely removed the onboard safety operator and is claimed by the companies as a European first.
Today, pasajeros invited are able to use a 22-kilometer route serving as a link between Verne’s headquarters and a central business district to Franjo Tuman Airport. No human oversees operator or autonomous-vehicle operator is present in the cabin. Pony.ai’s tier 7 system is responsible for delivering the entire drive, while Verne’s remote operations team observes the vehicles remotely without intervening in real time. The companies intend to extend the driverless routes during the upcoming months aiming to covering Verne’s entire operating zone in the Croatian capital.
That milestone comes just over five months after the same partners, working with Uber, announced the launch of what they known as Europe’s first commercial robotaxi service, in Zagreb, in April. That earlier deployment still involved a trained operator sitting in the vehicle. Since then the fleet has completed over 200,000 kilometers of autonomous driving, undertaking several thousand paid rider trips and boasts an overall rider rating of 4.7/5. The shift to a driverless operation marks the next step in that partnership model: Pony.ai gives the autonomous driving system, Verne handles local operations and regulatory approval, and Uber relies on its platform to make the service available to riders.
The cars utilizing the vehicles are Electric Crossovers based on Arcfox Alpha T5 that uses the Pony.ai Level 4 domain controller implemented on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX hardware. Allowing a 360-degree coverage by sensors with the fail-operational redundancy tested by Pony.ai in full driverless commercial services across several Chinese cities. The company has recorded over 100 million kilometers in autonomous driving worldwide, which it now seeks to leverage in the more challenging environment of Zagreb, consisting of a congestion of narrow streets, mixed traffic and local driving habits.
The cabin has been modified to accommodate independent passenger trips. The front passenger seat has been taken out to make room for a big display, a touchscreen console to control the ride, and more storage and charging space. The rides are carried out applying the Croatian legislation that allows testing autonomous vehicles with passengers over public roads, an approval that the partners claim they got before they set the driverless operation in motion.
The transition holds importance. It moves from the question; can technology perfected at a large scale in China function reliably in European conditions with no driver backup in the vehicle.
