Autonomous Systems

About 35 minutes a day per bus: the driver time spent manoeuvring inside the depot at MZA Warsaw. A 🚍 smartbus takes those moves over. That covers parking, charging approach, washing and repositioning. The figure varies with depot layout and fleet. Every move it takes over returns driver time to line service. In 3 minutes on stage at the MUBIL Mobility Awards 2026, Jan Gramatyka, Co-CEO of Autonomous Systems, explains why bus autonomy starts in the depot. A bus with a safety driver is not autonomous — it is simply a more expensive bus. Inside the depot, a 🚍 smartbus works with 🚫 NO safety driver. It drives empty, at low speed, on a known layout, under remote supervision. If anything is unclear, it stops. The State of Smart Depots 2026 has the numbers behind the video, from depot assessments. Compare them with your own depot.

About 35 minutes a day per bus: the driver time spent manoeuvring inside the depot at MZA Warsaw. A 🚍 smartbus takes those moves over. That covers parking, charging approach, washing and repositioning. The figure varies with depot layout and fleet. Every move it takes over returns driver time to line service. In 3 minutes on stage at the MUBIL Mobility Awards 2026, Jan Gramatyka, Co-CEO of Autonomous Systems, explains why bus autonomy starts in the depot. A bus with a safety driver is not autonomous — it is simply a more expensive bus. Inside the depot, a 🚍 smartbus works with 🚫 NO safety driver. It drives empty, at low speed, on a known layout, under remote supervision. If anything is unclear, it stops. The State of Smart Depots 2026 has the numbers behind the video, from depot assessments. Compare them with your own depot.

A bus with a safety driver is not autonomous — it is simply a more expensive bus. Jan Gramatyka, in 3 minutes: why bus autonomy starts in the depot. A smartbus is an ordinary bus with SmartDEPOT™ fitted in the factory. The manufacturer builds and services the bus as before. Inside the depot, on private ground, the Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 route may apply, without public-road type-approval.

Manual depot movement takes 10 to over 35 minutes per bus per day, depending on depot layout, fleet size and shift organisation. MZA Warsaw, a municipal operator, measured 35 minutes and values that time at over €88,000 per vehicle over a 12-year lifecycle. A 100-bus depot at 25 minutes per bus recovers about 15,000 driver-hours a year. Operators take this number into fleet renewal. Two inputs concern the bus itself: does the platform support drive-by-wire, and is the autonomy fitted in the factory by the manufacturer? The business case is the operator’s. Those two answers are yours.

Final del turno, última maniobra en la cochera. En MZA Varsovia: 3–4 colisiones leves por semana, sobre todo en marcha atrás. Informe gratuito.

Every night, bus depots repeat the same short movements. Staff drive each of them by hand, often in tight spaces. At Garage West, one of GVB’s three bus garages in Amsterdam, a depot autonomy readiness assessment by Autonomous Systems has identified three sets of movements that may be suitable for automation: • from the buffer zone through the wash facility to the parking position under the pantograph • workshop call-ups and returns • shunting, including end-of-shift repositioning The assessment followed a site visit in May 2026. GVB provided access to the depot and the operational information required for the assessment. A smartbus is an ordinary city bus, factory-fitted with SmartDEPOT™. Inside the depot it drives and parks itself at low speed, with no driver on board. In the operating concept discussed on site, the driver would leave the bus just inside the entry gate. The existing depot dispatcher would supervise the smartbus through SmartDEPOT™ Mission Control. Charging would start through the pantograph as soon as it parks. According to Autonomous Systems, the assessment indicates four potential benefits: a reduction in low-speed collisions, more efficient use of depot capacity, less time spent by depot staff on routine vehicle movements, and operational flexibility between depots where the technology has been implemented. The assessment does not constitute a decision by GVB to implement the technology.