In November 2026, no full-size city bus runs without a driver inside a European depot in regular operation, as far as Autonomous Systems knows. On public roads, full-size pilots carry a safety driver, as Munich’s MINGA pilot does in 2026. Inside the depot, a minibus already moves with no safety driver on board: Autonomous Systems’ development tests in Gliwice, supervised from SmartDEPOT™ Mission Control. Full-size series city buses do not yet have the redundant drive-by-wire that autonomy needs. The first full-size smartbus is in development.
Who is on board, where
The question an operator asks first is who sits in the bus. The table gives the answer for each setting, with the vehicle and the status.
| Setting | Vehicle | Who is on board | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public road, Bad Birnbach, Germany | Germany’s first automated bus on a public road | An attendant, from the first day to the last, under EU rules | Service ended at the end of 2024 |
| Public road, Munich, MINGA pilot | Full-size city bus | A safety driver, as public-road engineering requires | Pilot, 2026 |
| Depot, Autonomous Systems’ technology park in Gliwice | BB-1 minibus with SmartDEPOT™ | Nobody; supervised from SmartDEPOT™ Mission Control on site | Development tests; the test of 28 October 2026 covered angle parking, reverse parallel parking, obstacle avoidance and the return to the start |
| Depot, full-size city bus | A series city bus with redundant drive-by-wire | Nobody, once the bus exists | In development; none in regular operation without a driver known to Autonomous Systems |
Manufacturers have shown depot demonstrations with full-size buses since 2018. A demonstration is a vehicle moving once, on one day, with engineers around it. Regular operation is the bus doing it every evening, with the depot staff who are there anyway. The second has not happened yet with a full-size bus, and that is the honest reference point for every date in this field.
What the bus needs: drive-by-wire
Autonomy drives a bus through the steering, brakes and drive of the vehicle itself. For that, the bus needs redundant drive-by-wire: a second path for every command, so that a single fault never leaves the bus without steering or brakes. Full-size series city buses do not yet have it. Such buses take years to develop, approve and bring into fleets. The State of Smart Depots 2026 explains why depot and road autonomy share this one drive-by-wire foundation.
This is why automated depot driving reaches operators on the manufacturer route: a city bus leaves the factory with SmartDEPOT™ fitted by the manufacturer, and the operator keeps the manufacturers, models and service it already works with. The first full-size smartbus is in development. Every date on that route follows an approval step, and a date without its approval step is a wish.
What exists inside the depot today
Autonomous Systems has carried out depot assessments with operators in Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Switzerland. Each assessment is a site survey and data exercise in the operator’s own depot: the movements suited to automation, the time they take, the layout constraints. The public pilot runs on a minibus inside the PKM Gliwice depot. The development tests at the company’s technology park in Gliwice run on the BB-1 minibus with no safety driver on board, supervised from SmartDEPOT™ Mission Control on site.
The numbers behind the work: across assessed depots, manual depot movement takes 10 to over 35 minutes per vehicle per day, depending on depot layout, fleet size and shift organisation; at MZA Warsaw, the measured figure is about 35 minutes a day for each bus. Every depot move the smartbus makes returns driver time to line service. An operator can run the same estimate with its own numbers in Depot Minutes, a free online tool for depot time estimates.
What to ask any supplier of depot autonomy
Seven questions separate a status from a slogan. They apply to every supplier, Autonomous Systems included.
- Who is on board when the bus moves, and who supervises it from where?
- Is this series, pilot or development, and on which vehicle: a shuttle, a minibus or a full-size bus?
- Does the vehicle have redundant drive-by-wire, and who builds and services it?
- Where are the sensors: on the bus, or fixed in the depot? What happens to a person standing between two parked buses?
- What does the bus do when something is unclear?
- Which approval step stands behind each date?
- Which depot was each number measured in, what range does it sit in, and what does the estimate exclude?
Questions operators ask
Not in regular operation, as far as Autonomous Systems knows in November 2026. Manufacturers have shown depot demonstrations with full-size buses since 2018. On public roads, full-size pilots run with a safety driver on board, as in Munich in 2026. Inside a depot, the runs without a safety driver that exist today are on a minibus: Autonomous Systems’ development tests in Gliwice, supervised from SmartDEPOT™ Mission Control.
Full-size series city buses do not yet have redundant drive-by-wire, the second command path that autonomy needs for steering, brakes and drive. Such buses take years to develop, approve and bring into fleets. The State of Smart Depots 2026 explains why depot and road autonomy share this one foundation.
Automated depot driving reaches operators on new buses: the manufacturer fits SmartDEPOT™ in the factory, and the operator keeps the manufacturers, models and service it already works with. The first full-size smartbus is in development, and every date on that route follows an approval step.
The Smartbus Coordinator, a new role in the operator’s organisation, through SmartDEPOT™ Mission Control. The bus drives empty, at low speed, on a known layout, and stops whenever something is unclear.
With a site survey and data exercise in its own depot, the first step of the Smartbus Onboard Program: the movements suited to automation, the time they take, the layout constraints, and an estimate the operator can rerun with its own numbers in Depot Minutes.
Operators who want to know where their own depot stands start with Depot Minutes and the Smartbus Onboard Program, a site survey and data exercise in their own depot.
An autonomous bus becomes real when the safety driver leaves.