Buses Show Off Driverless Technology

DENVER (CBS4)- RTD is looking to the future with driverless vehcile technology. The company Transdev showed off its version of the buses at the Pepsi Center parking lot on Wednesday.

The bus is called the EZ10 and is the first generation of its kind from Transdev. Right now the bus costs $100,000 but the company hopes as the technology becomes more readily available, the cost will come down.

The bus gave riders a tour of the parking lot to show off the technology. The vehicle can transport about a dozen people. The maximum speed for the bus is 30 mph and it typically cruises between 8 mph and 15 mph. The battery life is up to 14 hours with eight hours of charging time.

RTD says the idea behind the driverless buses is not to replace current buses, but supplement the vehicles already on the road. One way would be to have the driverless buses transport riders from home to the bus stop and back again.

"It could run a small loop in a campus setting that then would connect with transit stations and it would be a very efficient type of operation that is certainly do-able with today's technology," said RTD CEO Dave Genova.

RTD says more research needs to be done before driverless buses are implemented.