MAN‘s “BeIntelli” project, developed with the Technical University of Berlin and IAV GmbH, is set to introduce intelligent traffic systems with autonomous vehicles in Berlin by spring 2024.

In May 2023 MAN announced it has entered a cooperation with Intel-owned Mobileye. MAN Truck & Bus is planning further pilots in actual customer use and, in perspective, full series production by the end of the decade. Michael Roth, Head of Product Strategy Bus at MAN Truck & Bus, in February spoke about the future of autonomous buses and the challenges of implementing the technology at the VDV Conference and ElekBu exhibition in Berlin.

An explanatory autonomous bus by MAN in Berlin for BeIntelli

BeIntelli project’s core is an “explanatory bus,” an autonomous electric vehicle equipped with an Automated Driving System from TU Berlin. “In the heart of the city, one of our all-electric buses will be driving on its own on a digitalized test track between Adenauer Platz and Ernst-Reuter-Platz towards Brandenburger Tor”, MAN stated on Linkedin.

The bus, based on a Lion’s City E model, will be equipped with an Automated Driving System (ADS) developed by the BeIntelli project partners DAI-Lab (belonging to Berlin’s TU University) and GT-ARC and is further supported by the Center for Tangible AI and Digitalization.

The bus will serve as a digitalized hub, incorporating screens to visually explain driving skills and technologies to passengers.

Highlights

Depot-first autonomy for European smartbuses

For more than a decade, autonomous buses have been “almost ready.” Demonstrations with safety drivers began around 2015, and ten years later, this is still largely what we see. The reason is not a lack of ambition – it is physics, safety, and economics. Autonomous buses on city streets a...

Related articles

MAN delivers largest single e-bus order in Austria to ÖBB Postbus

Austrian operator ÖBB Postbus has placed 63 MAN Lion’s City E buses into regular service across the Austrian federal state of Vorarlberg. The delivery represents the largest single electric bus order for MAN Truck & Bus in Austria. The vehicles, comprising 27 MAN Lion’s City 12 E and 36 articula...