The Greek city of Trikala in central Greece will be the first in the world to operate driverless buses in an urban environment, in a pilot scheme that city authorities hope will be up and running by September next year. The selection of the city to host the pilot scheme was announced in a press conference on Friday by Christoforos Rombos, the head of the municipality company e-Trikala SA that will run the pilot project. The technical details were outlined by Yiannis Karaseitanidis of the University Research Institute for Communication and IT Systems, who said the aim was to have six driverless vehicles circulating in the city centre by September 1. The Trikala project forms part of the broader European project CityMobil2, which is setting up a pilot platform for automated road transport systems implemented in several urban environments across Europe. It will be the largest and most complex pilot throughout Europe and will run on a trial basis from September 2015 until February 2016. Among others, the Trikala system will be the only one to use “on demand” vehicle movement on a trial basis. (source: ana-mpa)