Self-driving bus crashes on its first day of work

The shuttle 'did what it was supposed to do'


Tech Desk November 09, 2017
The self-driven shuttle service as it hit the roads of Las Vegas. PHOTO: CITY OF LAS VEGAS

A day after Alphabet owned Waymo announced its driverless services, a self-driving shuttle bus crashes on its first day of service.

The shuttle was carrying several passengers and crashed in Downtown, Las Vegas. It was hit by an incoming delivery truck dispelling rumours that there was something wrong with self-driving algorithm used as the shuttle “did what it was supposed to do.”

The shuttle service in Las Vegas is allowed to carry 15 passengers at a time, ferrying them from one place of the town to another. The service was to hit a maximum speed of 45km/h but usually travels at around 25km/h.

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“Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has the accident would have been avoided. Testing of the shuttle will continue during the 12-month pilot in the downtown Innovation District,” claimed a representative of the Las Vegas city government in an official note on Tumblr.

The driver and passengers remained unscathed while only the front bumper of the bus was damaged. According to the Tumblr note, the services were dropped for the rest of the day and the testing phase was to continue.

This article originally appeared on BBC.

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