A real paradigm shift in public transport is coming to Geneva

GSEM Professor Dimitri Konstantas is the Associate Coordinator and Technical Director of the ULTIMO project. From 2025, the European consortium ULTIMO will test an autonomous and on-demand shuttle service in three pilot cities in Europe. 

Although autonomous public transport services have many advantages and applications, major obstacles to their widespread deployment still exist. To assist in advancing this service, the Horizon Europe ULTIMO project will develop an automated minibus service in Geneva (Switzerland), Kronach (Germany), and Oslo (Norway). A total of 45 vehicles will be deployed.

From 2025, for one year, fifteen driverless electric minibuses will be deployed in Geneva, within a perimeter yet to be defined. These shuttles will have a capacity for about 15 people and will provide routes on demand 24 hours a day. This pilot project, led by the European consortium ULTIMO, in which the Geneva School of Management (GSEM) of the University of Geneva is actively involved, aims to set up a full-scale autonomous public transport network, offering a door-to-door service. It will build on the promising results of the H2020 AVENUE project, which ran from 2018 to 2022.

ULTIMO’s goal will be to develop a real business model that addresses the concrete economic, legal, and security issues of an automated on-demand transport service. The first part of the project focuses on solving problems such as passenger safety, ticket pricing, and determining the minimum and maximum distances. The second part of the project (2025-2026) will be dedicated to the implementation of the autonomous transport service in the field and testing the compatibility of the system. The project will have a total budget of 55 million Euros over four years, 16 million of which will be financed by the Swiss Confederation and 24 million by the European Commission.

> View the press release issued by the University of Geneva.

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