A new 26-seater bus is ready for the next phase of Connector – an autonomous vehicle trial in the UK city of Cambridge. After extensive virtual and on-road testing, the self-driving bus entered service on Wednesday, December 17, with another Connector bus joining the trial in the coming weeks. The buses will link Trumpington and Babraham Park & Rides with the Cambridge Biomedical Campus (CBC) for free, and will run throughout the week, Monday to Friday.
Connector is a trial by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) to explore whether autonomous buses could be part of the transportation solution for Cambridge in the future.
A smaller Connector bus running in West Cambridge has already carried 800 passengers since its launch in June, traveling over 2,000 miles. The two new larger buses will give many more passengers the opportunity to experience the future of bus travel for free.
Dan Clarke, head of innovation and technology at the Greater Cambridge Partnership, said, “In June, we rolled out Connector, the first ever timetabled self-driving bus service in Cambridge, now just six months later we’re launching two new larger buses as the second part of our passenger trial. We believe that there is real potential for self-driving vehicles to deliver sustainable, reliable public transport in Cambridge.
“As well as proving the technology can work and that self-driving buses can manage road traffic at scale, we are really interested in the passenger experience. We are working with Anthrometric as a research partner, to understand how people feel about using self-driving buses and how we can build confidence and trust in this new technology.”
Anthrometric specialises in research on how people interact with complex systems. They are using immersive VR methods to gather behavioral insights on how people engage with automated transportation.
The Connector project is funded by the UK government, as part of the CAM Pathfinder Programme. CAM Pathfinder is delivered by the Department for Business and Trade’s Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) team, in partnership with Innovate UK and Zenzic.
Designed and built in the UK, the Enviro100AEV electric autonomous bus being used in this stage of the trial recently won ‘Vehicle of the Year’ at the Self-Driving Industry Awards 2025. The bus integrates AI and high-performance computing with radar, lidar and cameras to deliver fully automated driving. The buses are built by Alexander Dennis and equipped with an SAE level 4 automated drive system by Fusion Processing. The vehicles are supported by trained safety drivers at all times.
The Connector trial is being delivered by the Greater Cambridge Partnership, together with partners Fusion Processing, Alexander Dennis, dRISK, Whippet and Anthrometric.
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