Driverless Bus Collides with Pedestrian in Vienna

The self-driving shuttle trial is now on hold.

Low Speed Collision

A driverless bus collided with a 30-year-old woman in Vienna on Thursday while traveling at 7.5 mph, according to Bloomberg. The self-driving shuttle trial that had been operating since June in the European capital was put on hold in light of the accident.

A statement by NAVYA — the French autonomous vehicle company behind the trial — received by The Verge revealed that the pedestrian was allegedly wearing headphones and looking at her phone. The woman only suffered "minor scratches," according to the statement.

"We are already analyzing the logs of the incidents in order to shed light on what happened," NAVYA's statement read. "For this reason, the buses remain in the garage until they are clarified."

Autonomous Shuttles

NAVYA is currently running self-driving shuttle service trials in dozens of cities across the globe. It's still unclear if NAVYA will put other trials on hold as well.

Nonetheless, the incident is bad news for the autonomous driving industry: regulators have been scrutinizing similar projects in the U.S. and other parts of the world.

And it's not the first collision of its kind. For instance, one of Uber's self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona in March 2018. Both NAVYA's shuttle and Uber's self driving car had a safety driver on board.

READ MORE: Pedestrian collision puts Vienna’s driverless bus trial on hold [The Verge]

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