Driverless Navya shuttle dings pedestrian, suspending AV trials in Vienna
This is the same company that had an accident with a truck in Las Vegas.
Autonomous-vehicle startup Navya made news in late 2017 when one of its shuttles bumped into a truck in Las Vegas, although it was quite clearly the truck's fault in that scenario. Navya's latest oopsie, though, appears to be on the driverless shuttle itself.
One of Navya's driverless shuttles was involved in an accident in Vienna, Austria, Bloomberg reports, citing a German-language report from Austrian broadcaster ORF. According to Bloomberg's translation of the report, the Navya shuttle was operating at a speed of 7.5 miles per hour when it collided with a 30-year-old woman, striking her in the knee.
Navya was running two of its driverless shuttles as part of a pilot project in Vienna that started in early June. However, following the collision, Vienna's transit authority has suspended the pilot project until the accident's investigation comes to a conclusion. It's unclear when that will be, and it's also unclear if Navya's shuttles will resume their duties after the investigation wraps up.
Meanwhile, Navya's shuttles have had a pretty easy time in Las Vegas following the bus incident in 2017. Its shuttles run about eight hours a day between Tuesday and Sunday, taking Las Vegas citizens and tourists around the Downtown Las Vegas Container Park, an open-air shopping center. The American Automobile Association, one of the shuttle's sponsors, even tried to find a couple who wanted to get married inside one of Navya's driverless shuttles. Given how small they are, I hope whoever signed up didn't invite too many people.