Tuesday 25th September 2018 - First Ride On A Driverless Shuttle Bus @ Olympic Park (NSWsmartshuttle)

I was fortunate thanks to The Engineering Society to be one of the first group of people to walk through the Harbour Tunnel before it opened to live traffic and remember it clearly because there was so much talk about leaks and there was spak filler visible everywhere throughout the tunnel therefore safety was a big issue but to date no major disasters.

So I am super excited to be one of the first groups of people to take a ride on a driverless shuttle bus out at Olympic Park thanks to a survey/competition I entered 6 months ago at The Royal Easter Show. Yes it has been 6 months and it was worth taking the morning off work and getting up extra early to travel all the way out to Olympic Park just to take a ride on it.

I was able to get on the 9.10 am ride although I was originally booked for the 9.40 am ride. We had to complete a pre boarding survey and a post alighting survey which I took quite seriously and was organised by UTS. It asked us in detail what we thought of the ride from interior design, speed, energy usage, safety, how often we were likely to use the service and for what means etc...

photos attached and 2 videos have been uploaded onto Youtube.

Which would you rather? 

This........

Verses

 This.........

First ride at 8.30 am was booked out and a group of very excited school children along with some parents and media were on the first ride.  The driverless bus can be overrode with a Nintendo type hand held controller on board - you could hear jokes from parents of kids on board the ride taking over the controls and crashing the driverless shuttle bus. I can imagine the types of things these kids learnt whilst on board and the types of questions their curious little minds would ask. When they arrive back and alighted, they were still full of energy but had to pose for media photographs.

The ride itself was very smooth,  it travelled stopped and turned without any glitches however it only travelled at 15 Km/Hr with a maximum speed of 45 Km/Hr. The size of the battery took up most of the front/back of the driverless shuttle bus which will only last around 6 hours at the rate the shuttle was running today ie rides every hour between 8.30 am and 4.30 pm. Poor vehile will be exhausted before the end of the day and no recharge stations in sight for the vehicle. 

After completing the preboarding and post alighting surveys I headed straight to work via train train bus to Balmain. It took me just an hour out of my work day to enjoy this experience. Back at work by 10.30 am. If I did not book to get a spot on the 9.10 am ride I would have had to wait until the 9.40 am ride which meant I would not get back to work until noon. Glad I arrived at Olympic Park in time - by getting up and leaving by 7.28 am it made all the difference.

Onto my next adventure this weekend! I do hope the weather is good as it is an outdoor event!