The figure sits in the operator’s own claims ledger, and it is usually larger than the insurance line shows, because minor repairs are done in the workshop and never reach the insurer. In a large depot operated manually, The State of Smart Depots 2026 counts 3 to 4 minor collisions a week, most of them while reversing and late in the evening, when traffic in the yard and fatigue are highest. A smartbus, a bus that drives itself inside the depot without a driver, parks and reverses at low speed with sensors on the bus, and stops whenever something is unclear.
Where the damage happens
Reversing into a tight bay. A mirror against a pillar on a multi-storey ramp. A corner clipped on the way to the wash. The yard rule in many depots says: give way to reversing buses. The incidents cluster at the end of long shifts, when the last manoeuvre of the day is the hardest one, in the dark, in a full yard. None of them makes the news. All of them cost money and vehicle days.
How to count it
Four lines give the yearly figure for one depot: the number of depot incidents a year, including those repaired in-house; the average repair cost per incident; the vehicle-off-road days they cause, at the daily cost of a bus out of service; and the replacement vehicles or cancelled trips those days produce. Most operators have the first two lines in the workshop system and the last two nowhere, which is why the board sees a smaller number than the depot does. The Smartbus Ready assessment, the first step of the Smartbus Onboard Program, records the damage line beside the depot minutes, as one of the operator’s own inputs.
What the smartbus changes
Reversing and parking at depot speed, with 360° perception, are the manoeuvres SmartDEPOT™ automates. The sensors are on the bus, so the bus sees what the driver’s mirrors do not: the pillar behind the rear corner, the person between two parked buses. The bus drives empty, at low speed, on a known layout. If anything is unclear, it stops, and the Smartbus Coordinator in SmartDEPOT™ Mission Control decides what happens next. The manoeuvre that ends a 12-hour shift becomes one the bus makes itself. Works tirelessly, sees more, reacts faster – fewer low-speed collisions, greater peace of mind, improved safety.
More on safety: How safe are smartbuses? Where this stands today, with who is on board where: Where does depot autonomy for city buses stand in 2026?
Questions operators ask
In a large depot operated manually, The State of Smart Depots 2026 counts 3 to 4 minor collisions a week, most of them while reversing and late in the evening, when traffic in the yard and fatigue are highest.
Incidents a year including those repaired in-house, average repair cost per incident, the vehicle-off-road days they cause at the daily cost of a bus out of service, and the replacement vehicles or cancelled trips those days produce. The insurance line alone understates it.
It reverses and parks at low speed with 360° perception from sensors on the bus, on a known layout, empty, and it stops whenever something is unclear. The manoeuvres where depot damage happens, reversing into tight bays late in the evening, are the ones it makes itself.
The bus stops. The Smartbus Coordinator, a new role in the operator’s organisation, sees the situation in SmartDEPOT™ Mission Control and decides what happens next.
Operators who want their own numbers start with Depot Minutes, a free online tool for depot time estimates, and the Smartbus Onboard Program, a site survey and data exercise in their own depot.
Smartbuses in every depot.