EMBRACER at the webinar on pilot actions call
On 25 March, the Interreg Europe team organised a webinar on the opportunity to implement a pilot actions for the 72 first call projects. The webinar shared information on the rationale of pilot actions, on how to apply to the call for pilot actions and gave participants the chance to ask questions.
Also, concrete examples of pilot actions were shared: EMBRACER was mentioned!
More than 90 webinar participants were able to find out more about the pilot action conducted by the city of Vilnius thanks to funds received from the Interreg Europe programme under the EMBRACER project.
An 8-seat L3 autonomous electric shuttle service (AES) was tested in Užupis district of Vilnius for improving the transport connectivity of suburban areas in Vilnius and for accessing public transport stops to enable users traveling further afield. Thanks to the pilot action, data were collected and analyzed regarding passenger flows, the quality and suitability of the infrastructure for autonomous transport, as well as the potential effectiveness of the autonomous bus as a form of public transport and its potential integration into the city’s transportation system in the future.
The trial shed light on infrastructure challenges, traffic intensity, and illegal street parking, providing crucial insights for future deployments. Despite these hurdles, passengers feedback was overwhelmingly positive, proving that Vilnius is ready to embrace autonomous mobility!
Currently, recommendations are being prepared for the city to consider the possibility of including an autonomous bus in the SUMP as a new type of public transport.