Las Vegas Autonomous Shuttle to Continue Tests Despite Fender Bender

Las Vegas will continue testing an autonomous shuttle in a 12-month pilot, despite a fender bender involving a delivery truck with a human driver, it blogged. The autonomous shuttle was in a test when it was nicked by a delivery truck downtown, it said. The shuttle "did what it was supposed to do," with its sensors registering the truck and stopping to avoid an accident, said the post. "Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle," it said, saying if the truck had the same type of sensing equipment as the shuttle, "the accident would have been avoided." The shuttle was taken out of service for the rest of the day, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department issued the truck driver a citation, it said. The shuttle is the country’s first autonomous shuttle to be fully integrated with “smart-city” infrastructure, designed to communicate with traffic signals to improve safety and traffic flow, said the post. The shuttle is operated and maintained by Keolis, in partnership with the city and French autonomous driving company Navya.