Yes, but maybe it would be better to fix the ones we have first and (if there’s time left) perhaps make the service efficient, because you can’t just stand there, half an hour at a time, waiting for a bus that when it arrives is packed full and not even a pin can fit, that is always late, under the sun, in the rain, that has skipped a run or your stop because it’s forced to weave through traffic and has to detour around roadworks. Then, of course, the future is now, as they say when you want to cut a conversation short: but Rome is not San Francisco and Via del Corso is not the China of self-driving robot taxis. Mr. Gualtieri, please stop for a moment.
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HOW THEY WORK
The Roman City Hall is thinking about self-driving minibuses. Those super-tech shuttles that you book through an app on your phone, they take you where you need to go, but on board there’s no one except a computerized brain perfectly integrated with its surroundings and trained by artificial intelligence to detect pedestrians, speed limits, and one-way streets. Very safe, that’s not the point (where they already run, in the United States and Beijing, they work wonderfully): the fact is that between the Colosseum and Piazza Navona the problems, even those of mobility, are probably different.
Just this summer, the city buses that literally ended up in the depot because of the heat were many, over fifty, all electric and with breakdowns due to air conditioning overheating which, when on, didn’t allow the run to finish the shift: this didn’t happen only in Rome, true, and this season is a record for heat and sweltering temperatures; but before thinking about automated mini-vans, wouldn’t it be better to solve little issues like this with the city fleet, which is old only up to a certain point, that already exists?
We ask, more out of common sense than a sense of controversy: after all, the city is large, it has almost three million inhabitants, it is invaded every day by hordes of tourists (fortunately they come), making the entire traffic flow work is no joke, even with the benefit of the doubt, isn’t it running a bit too much? Considering, among other things, that often here there’s no way to run (to cover ten kilometers, according to TomTom’s detection index, in Rome it takes on average 30 minutes and 46 seconds, the speed during rush hour is 16.7 kilometers per hour: whether it’s a driverless shuttle or a traditional vehicle, it’s almost better to walk).
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Peace, like peace for that little thing of three million euros that, last year, Atac committed to pay to its users as compensation, before the AGCM, the Competition and Market Authority, for having (it reads in the text to avoid any doubt) “systematically failed, between 2021 and 2023, to meet the quality and quantity obligations of the public transport service”: which means that Atac, that is the Company for the capital’s public transport which is 100% owned by Rome Capital, would have accumulated delays and canceled runs without even adequately reimbursing those affected by the inconveniences.
EUROPEAN TENDERS
But everything’s fine, it’s okay like this. Mayor Roberto Gualtieri (PD) and his Mobility Councillor Eugenio Patanè (also) look ahead. Maybe a bit too much (when it would be better to focus on what’s right in front of our eyes today), but what can you do? Yes, it’s not like self-driving minibuses will materialize with a snap of the fingers (by the way: to start with, a 5G infrastructure is needed throughout the city and that’s not something you get in a moment, and then a digital mapping of roads, signs, traffic lights, sidewalks is also required), the most optimistic estimate two or three years: but the left in City Hall is very keen on a “notice that will serve to participate in European tenders that will start expiring at the end of October and with which part of the project can be financed” (Patanè). Meanwhile, we’ll see.
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