ioki takes over fleet management for the project initiated by Swiss Transit Lab, the cantons of Zurich and Aargau, and the SBB, including algorithm-based routing and pooling of the vehicles, and provides the passenger app for later booking of the on-demand service.
Training drives and test phase follow approval
With the special permit from ASTRA for automated driving, the training phase begins. The technology used by WeRide for automated driving is learning, among other things, to correctly implement Switzerland-specific traffic rules and to familiarise itself with typical local traffic situations.
In the subsequent test phase, communication between the autonomous driving system of the self-driving vehicles (WeRide) and the fleet management system by ioki will be reviewed and optimised – first with, then without a safety driver. After successful completion of this test phase, the new on-demand service will be available to the public.
Outlook: Public operation with ioki app in 2026
According to the current project status, this is planned for the first half of 2026 – from then on, passengers will be able to book the iamo vehicles (Nissan Ariya electric), equipped with automated driving technology from WeRide, via the ioki app. The routing algorithm developed by ioki processes incoming ride requests from the app and sends route information to the autonomous driving system of the iamo vehicles.
The official press release on the approval for automated driving in Furttal with detailed information on the current project status can be found on the Swiss Transit Lab website.
