The ParkShuttle is an electrically-driven,

autonomous In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ow ...

shuttle service that runs between

Kralingse Zoom metro station Kralingse Zoom is a subway station on lines A, B, and C of the Rotterdam Metro, in the Kralingen neighbourhood of eastern Rotterdam. The station is located just west of the A16 motorway on the east side of Kralingse Zoom, the road it is named aft ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

to the Rivium

business park A business park or office park is a designated area of land in which many office buildings are grouped together. These types of developments are often located in suburban areas where land and building costs are more affordable, and are typicall ...

Capelle aan den IJssel Capelle aan den IJssel (; en, Capelle on the IJssel) is a small city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality had a population of in , and covers an area of , of which is water. It is situ ...

. The system first opened 1999 and has been extended since. It has three stops in Rivium (at the 4th, 2nd and 1st streets), a stop Fascinatio (serving the residential area in Capelle aan den IJssel and the Brainpark III business park) and finally at

. In 2022 six vehicles of the third generation entered service. Parkshuttle is owned by the Rotterdam-The Hague metropolitan area (MRDH) and operated by the Connexxion bus company. The route lies on its own

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

, but it does have

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an overpass or tunnel. The term a ...

s with cars, cyclists and pedestrians. It is double-lane throughout except for a bridge over the N210 "Abraham van Rijckevorselweg" highway and an underpass below the A16 motorway to connect to the railway station. On weekdays, the Shuttle runs between 06:00 and 21:00. During rush hour a shuttle runs every 2.5 minutes. Outside rush hours, the shuttle runs on demand with passengers pressing a button at the station to summon a vehicle. In 2018 it was unique as the only operational automated road vehicle in Europe in permanent (revenue generating) service. Since 2015 a number of similar shared autonomous vehicle systems have been developed and trialed in routes shared with other vehicles or pedestrians. The ParkShuttle was trialed in 2019 at both Brussels Airport and at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Some other systems are in operation on private roads (such as around factories). As of mid-2021 some "revenue" systems being trialed.

Features

The system, a hybrid between a personal rapid transit and an automated

people mover A people mover or automated people mover (APM) is a type of small scale automated guideway transit system. The term is generally used only to describe systems serving relatively small areas such as airports, downtown districts or theme parks. ...

, works like a horizontal

elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They a ...

. A shuttle can be manually called at the stop, and there are buttons in the shuttle to request each stop individually (compared to a regular

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

service, where stops must be requested at the appropriate time and location). As of 2018, the route is long and uses six shuttle vehicles numbered 1 through 6 (administratively numbered 5801 to 5806). The vehicles are fully automatic and follow a virtual route where their positions are checked based on artificial reference points (in the form of small magnets in the road surface). They stop at fixed positions at the stations, most of which can fit two shuttles, one behind another. They are uni-directional (with front-wheel steering) and reverse direction at

turning loop A balloon loop, turning loop, or reversing loop ( North American Terminology) allows a rail vehicle or train to reverse direction without having to shunt or stop. Balloon loops can be useful for passenger trains and unit freight trains. Bal ...

s at both ends of the route. There is an automatic charging station at the Kralingse Zoom metro station where the batteries of the shuttles are charged every day. The shuttles are designated as line 500 in

timetables A schedule or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order in which such things are ...

, but this is not indicated on the shuttles. The service was

free of charge The English adjective ''free'' is commonly used in one of two meanings: "at no monetary cost" (''gratis'') and "with little or no restriction" (''libre''). This ambiguity of ''free'' can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it ...

to use until the end of 2011, due to the lack of

ticket machine A ticket machine, also known as a ticket vending machine (TVM), is a vending machine that produces paper or electronic tickets, or recharges a stored-value card or smart card or the user's mobile wallet, typically on a smartphone. For instanc ...

s and

validator A validator is a computer program used to check the validity or syntactical correctness of a fragment of code or document. The term is commonly used in the context of validating HTML,Tittel, Ed, and Mary C. Burmeister. HTML 4 for Dummies. --For d ...

s (later replaced by OV-chipcard readers) along with supervisors. Since the end of 2011, OV-chipcard readers are installed at the stops and no paper tickets are sold. As OV-chipcards can only be bought at the metro station proper (not the shuttle stop), passengers must have an OV chipcard on hand when boarding at other stops.

Experimental phase

An experimental phase started in 1997 with a vehicle that drove without any passengers for the first three months. The next three months test passengers rode the vehicle and crossing traffic was simulated. During the experimental phase a steward was in the vehicle. Eventually regular passengers were able to use the vehicle and the steward was no longer needed in the vehicle.

Generation I

The first version of the Parkshuttle ran from February 1999 to 2001 between

and

. An evaluation showed that the new vehicle needed to be able to move more passengers and the waiting time had to be reduced. Furthermore, there was a need for a reliable system and better travel information.

Generation II

For ParkShuttle II the route was extended and became dual lane. New vehicles were introduced with more transport capacity: ParkShuttle II can carry a maximum of 22 passengers. The system and the vehicles were supplied by 2getthere, where Spijkstaal supplied the chassis and drive system and the design was made by Duvedec. On 1 December 2006 ParkShuttle II was officially inaugurated by Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. A day later the ParkShuttle was open to the public. Prior to that, concessionaire Connexxion had been granted a concession for the period 2006-2011. In 2011, after a new tender, the concession for a further period of 5 years was awarded to Connexxion. In 2016 the concession was extended by 2 years until December 2018. Shortly after the system was put into operation, a collision occurred between two vehicles (without a driver) during start-up. The analysis of the incident showed that, after loss of communication at start-up of the system and after removal of the vehicle, an error was made by the supervisor as a result of which two other vehicles were allowed to enter the single lane section from different sides. The obstacle detection system did react, but could not prevent the collision. In addition, one vehicle was damaged by a fire in the storage of the vehicles. After repairing the vehicles, the ParkShuttle has been running without any significant problems ever since. During the period of April 2011 to December 2011, the system was out of service due to the construction of a parking garage at the Kralingse Zoom station. The ParkShuttle could not be used because the lane was blocked. A replacement bus service was used during this period. This bus service also runs in case of emergencies and drives on a lane next to the ParkShuttle. The Metropolitan region Rotterdam-The Hague and the municipality of Capelle aan den IJssel undertook major maintenance on the existing ParkShuttle lane at the beginning of 2017.

Generation III

On 7 March 2018 the MRDH granted Connexxion a new concession for 15 years, for the period December 2018 to December 2033. This concession includes an extension of the route, renewal of the fleet of shuttles and driving in mixed traffic on some parts of the route. The supplier of the system is agai
www.2getthere.eu
2getthere, who has worked together with the municipality of Capelle aan den IJssel for this purpose. Together they have submitted a proposal for the replacement and extension with the Marketplace for Infrastructure of the 'Verkeersonderneming', which was granted early 2017. With this, the 'Verkeersonderneming' is responsible for 50% of the costs of realization. In 2019 the vehicles were due to be replaced and the route extended to the

Nieuwe Maas The Nieuwe Maas (; "New Meuse") is a distributary of the Rhine River, and a former distributary of the Maas River, in the Dutch province of South Holland. It runs from the confluence of the rivers Noord and Lek, and flows west through Rotterd ...

waterway, where passengers can change to the

Waterbus A water taxi or a water bus is a watercraft used to provide public or private transport, usually, but not always, in an urban environment. Service may be scheduled with multiple stops, operating in a similar manner to a bus, or o ...

at the

Van Brienenoordbrug The Van Brienenoord Bridge (Dutch: ''Van Brienenoordbrug'') is a large twin tied-arch motorway bridge in the Netherlands. Located at the east side of Rotterdam, it crosses the New Meuse (''Nieuwe Maas''), a major distributary of the river Rhine. ...

stop. In November 2022, after some delays due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, the new third generation shuttles went into operation. The new vehicles are lighter than before, have air-conditioning and can drive in two directions which means the turning loops at the termini are no longer be needed. It is forseen to extend the existing route towards the waterfront where a stop for the Waterbus will be created. On the extended route, the ParkShuttle will autonomously drive on the public road in mixed traffic.

References

External links

Vehicle specifications, see 2getthere

Information ParkShuttle on Connexxion website

first autonomous system, Capelle aan den IJssel

Concession awarded for further period of 5 years
{{Autonomous cars and enabling technologies Self-driving cars