Europe’s first driverless train has begun ferrying passengers between two Czech towns, with lidar and cameras replacing a human operator.

Rail firm AZD said that the train runs entirely autonomously, with systems that control its traction, brakes and speed as required.

While autonomous trains have already been deployed in airports and urban transport systems such as London’s Docklands Light Railway, they move in closed corridors protected by fences and tunnels.

But the AZD train travels across an open landscape, through level crossings and past vehicle and foot traffic.

The vehicle, named Edita, runs along a 25km route linking the towns of Kopidlno and Dolní Bousov. It has so far racked up around 1,700km miles of test journeys with passengers on board and has sometimes been forced to stop unexpectedly – such as when a herd of sheep wandered over the track.

The route itself was originally abandoned in 2010 before being purchased by AZD six years later.

Edita is equipped with a set of cameras and lidar sensors that take detailed pictures of the surroundings, measure distances and map the terrain.

Screens inside the carriage allow passengers to see in real time the data necessary for the autonomous operation of the control systems. During early testing, a driver has remained on board in order to ensure the technology is operating as it should and has the ability to takeover if needed.

The Edita vehicle (Experimental Rail Vehicle for Innovative Technologies of AZD) and the infrastructure of the railway line are equipped with a number of highly sophisticated systems with artificial intelligence and the ability to learn in the digital 4.0 version.

The firm has invested around 320 million Czech koruna in the project up to this point, with around one-third of the funding being provided by the EU.

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