Driverless cars move from Gelderland to Germany after Dutch trial is halted

Experiments with this French driverless car begin on Dutch roads next year
The Wepods are now being used in Germany

Two self-driving cars used in an experiment in Gelderland are now being used at Weeze airport in Germany after the Dutch trials were halted early, the Volkskrant said on Tuesday.

Trials using two small buses, known as Wepods, began in 2015 on a route between Ede-Wageningen railway stations and the university campus.

However, the project failed to take off. The vehicles took longer to travel the 6.5 kilometre distance than a bike and plotting the route on the public roads was more complicated than expected, the Volkskrant said.

At the end of 2017, the project was stopped, but should not be described as a failure, said a spokesman for the province, which pumped €4.1m into the scheme. ‘Our aim was to learn from it and we have done,’ the spokesman said.

In Germany the Wepods will spend six months moving around the airport over a maximum distance of 3.2 kilometres.

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