Trams will operate without drivers – Kommersant FM

Trams will operate without drivers – Kommersant FM

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An unmanned tram will appear on the streets of Moscow in the second half of 2024. A few more months are needed to finally organize the work, said Deputy Mayor of the capital for transport issues Maxim Liksutov. Test runs are carried out at the depot. According to the official, the car recognizes traffic lights and sees pedestrians crossing the road, even in the wrong places. The tram also recognizes animals and will slow down in front of a cat or dog on the tracks.

In the future, all Moscow trams will be switched to unmanned control, Liksutov specified. This will be a significant saving for the city, believes Dmitry Rakovich, development director of Softlogic: “In any unmanned vehicle there are several system levels. These are radars that determine distance; lidars, which build a digital map of the surrounding space; cameras that can detect people, animals and other obstacles on the tracks. All this requires training and mutual adjustment within the artificial intelligence that must be placed on board.

From a technical point of view, we have solutions to all these problems. Another thing is that AI needs to be trained within the framework of Moscow, to see how it will work, because no two cities are the same. In addition, there are different operating conditions. According to experts, the introduction of unmanned vehicles in certain areas brings about 20-25% of economic benefits.”

At the first stage, there will still be a driver in the cabin of the unmanned tram. However, Pavel Yablokov, editor of the publication Transport in Russia, doubts that transportation without human control will become possible in the coming years. There are too many obstacles on city roads, the expert believes: “Drivers are needed, it’s just that their functions are increasingly reduced to control. That is, a significant part of the work will be automated, but it will be monitored by a living person.

Automatic systems protect against errors associated with the human factor; they can react to certain events earlier than the human nervous system. Double insurance increases the level of safety; it is not superfluous at all. But there are too many unpredictable factors on our streets for completely unmanned public transport.”

The Moscow metro will be transferred to driverless trains only after the system is tested on trams. Most likely, after 2030, said Maxim Liksutov. As an example, he cited the Paris metro, where line 11 operates completely without a driver, but in the French capital the intervals between trains are about five minutes, and in Moscow – 90 seconds. The deputy mayor noted that it is “completely pointless” to establish such long intervals for trains without a driver in the capital, since this will worsen the work of the metro.


Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.

Svetlana Belova

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