An autonomous shuttle bus is currently being tested at Flinders University and has now entered the second stage of its trial. Dubbed the "Flinders University Express Shuttle" (FLEX), the bus can carry 11 seated passengers. It operates on a 2.8km route and is described as a "test bed" for the future of autonomous vehicles in South Australia. In what continues to be one of Australia's only public autonomous vehicle testing programs, the Flinders University autonomous shuttle bus travels around the Tonsely innovation district, between the train station, the residential village, the university and the TAFE. It's a walking distance route, but keep in mind that it's only a trial at the moment.

Lilee Systems has received the first permit for self-driving bus commercial services on two designated bus lines in Tainan, Taiwan. The self-driving fleet, subsidized by the Ministry of Transportation, will generate new revenues to the city's public transit systems by providing two regular bus services in the science park and between the high-speed railway station and the nearby university, exhibition center and large outlet mall. This milestone of the innovative autonomous rapid transit system has been achieved through partnership with Kasion Green Energy, Taiwan's sole distributor of BYD vehicles, and Tainan Bus, one of the largest bus operators servicing over 23-million passengers per year. Selected by the Tainan City Government and Taiwan's Ministry of Transportation, Lilee Systems, Kasion Green Energy and Tainan Bus have signed a memorandum of cooperation in creating a new smart transportation model that realizes true driverless driving of urban buses. The commercial services will begin on September 2021 using the BYD K6 bus fleet.

This story was originally published by Grist. It appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Our gas-guzzling car culture is about to change forever, but not necessarily for good. The shift from gasoline-power to electric, the rise of ridesharing, and the invention of self-driving vehicles will soon overhaul transportation. A new report, just published by the Greenlining Institute, a racial equity nonprofit, says these three revolutions will speed us into a gridlocked and polluted future unless we put the right policies in place.

The UK won't sit idly by while the US, Japan and China put self-driving vehicles on their roads. The country's government has announced an ambitious driverless public transport plan for 2021, including autonomous buses in Scotland and self-driving taxis in several of London's boroughs, with state funding to the tune of £25 million ($33 million). Scotland's first self-driving buses -- which could provide up to 10,000 journeys a week between Fife and Edinburgh across the Forth Bridge -- will get £4.35m Initially, the single-decker buses will require a human driver to be present at all times, with unmanned tests limited to the depot. The autonomous buses will be able to carry up to 42 passengers for the 14-mile journey and will operate every 20 minutes, according to the BBC.

The second annual Baidu AI Developers Conference, officially known as Baidu Create 2018, opened in Beijing today. Baidu unveiled China's first cloud-to-edge AI chip, Kunlun, and many other upgraded versions of Baidu's AI products this morning on the first day of this two-day event. Li Yanhong, known as Robin Li, the founder and CEO of Baidu, introduced Baidu's latest research achievements in artificial intelligence (AI) field. Started in 2013, the autonomous driving project was mainly lead and developed by the Baidu Research Institute. At the 2017 Baidu World Congress in November last year, Robin Li stated that Baidu's Level 4 self-driving bus "Apolong" would be mass-produced by July 2018.

China's internet giant Baidu has started mass producing the country's first autonomous minibus as the company prepares to roll them out in tourist spots and airports. The eight-seater Apolong, about one-third of the size of a normal bus, has no steering wheel, driver's seat, accelerator or brake, Baidu announced on Wednesday at its annual developers' conference in Beijing. The driverless bus was co-developed by Baidu and Chinese commercial vehicle maker King Long and is powered by Apollo's autonomous driving operating system, Apollo 3.0. China's internet giant Baidu has started mass producing the country's first autonomous minibus as the company prepares to roll them out in tourist spots and airports Robin Li, CEO of search giant Baidu, speaks in front of an image of the Apolong, China's first L4 fully autonomous bus, during the Baidu Create 2018 held in Beijing on Wednesday The autonomous bus can complete obstacle avoidance, swerving and automatic transshipment without any human intervention, according to Xinhua News. Video footage released by Baidu - often referred to as China's Google - shows the company's massive manufacturing facility in Xiamen, in south-east China's Fujian province.

Countries around the world are encouraging the development of self-driving technologies. High-density Singapore, which has manpower shortages in many sectors, is at the forefront of such efforts and is hoping to prompt its residents to use more shared vehicles and public transport.

When a short trial of an autonomous bus first ran in Helsinki, Finland, in 2016, most riders saw it as a novelty. But by this fall, if you work in downtown Helsinki, you might start riding the city's robo-bus as part of your daily commute. The city is one of a handful to launch a longer-term trial of the technology, running along a regular bus route. "If we want to get real data, we need to have it in an area where the same people will be every day," says Harri Santamala, who directs a smart mobility program at Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and is coordinating Sohjoa, a joint project that is testing the autonomous shuttles. "So we are now aiming toward the local people, feeding them to the tram or metro lines… We need strong, long-term experiences of how people will really use an autonomous bus, and what happens when the novelty value of the bus wears off."

Bret Greenstein, vice president of the IBM Watson Internet of Things Platform, says we'll come to love the autonomous car. Speaking at UPSHIFT 2016, he said it all has to with how the cars will listen to us and how we'll form relationships with them. Greenstein introduced the topic by talking about his first car, a 1960s Oldsmobile. He talked about all the classic car guy tropes, that he could fix it with "a screwdriver and duct tape" and how he knew what the car needed just by listening to it. With smart, autonomous cars, those roles will be reversed, with the car listening to you to find out what you need.

Residents of Helsinki, Finland will soon be used to the sight of buses with no drivers roaming the city streets. One of the world's first autonomous bus pilot programs has begun in the Hernesaari district, and will run through mid-September. Finnish law does not require vehicles on the road to have a driver, making it the perfect place to get permission to test the Easymile EZ-10 electric mini-buses. "This is actually a really big deal right now," Harri Santamala, project manager at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and the test project lead, told a local news outlet. SEE: When will we get driverless cars?