The Calgary ELA pilot was the first autonomous shuttle in Western Canada providing the public with an opportunity to experience this technology first-hand.

ELA moved passengers between the Calgary Zoo and TELUS Spark throughout the month of September, 2018. 

The Strathcona ELA pilot ran for 14 consecutive days from October 22nd – November 4th, 2018. Despite halting the operations temporarily due to hardware malfunction, the pilot brought over 1,016 passengers to ride the Autonomous Shuttle.

The Strathcona route was proposed by the City of Edmonton and was the second deployment of Autonomous Shuttle Technology in the City. 

The Grey Cup ELA pilot ran for 2 consecutive days from November 21st – 22nd. The pilot brought over 117 passengers to ride the Autonomous Shuttle.

The University of Alberta’s Centre for Smart Transportation (CST) in partnership with the City of Edmonton, ran a research pilot with the autonomous shuttle ELA. This ran in 2 phases,  November 5th – 16th, and November 26th – 30th, 2018. The pilot brought over 53 passengers to ride the Autonomous Shuttle.

This research is part of an ongoing project to better understand the performance of autonomous vehicles in winter conditions, to understand how the vehicle relates to infrastructure around it, and to test the operation of the Autonomous Shuttle in a secure and reliable environment.

The Reynolds-Alberta Museum hosted a pilot with ELA for five days. This project was a milestone for various stakeholders involved in the project as it represented the first time PWT deployed and operated an AV indoors for a public demonstration. For the duration of the pilot, ELA provided 313 passenger trips to museum visitors. The Reynolds-Alberta Museum proposed the route as the first deployment of an autonomous shuttle pilot, of this kind in the City of Wetaskiwin.

The City of Surrey hosted a pilot at the Surrey Civic Plaza that lasted for 17 days. This demonstration was a part of the City of Surrey and City of Vancouver’s joint bid for the Smart Cities Challenge. For the duration of the pilot, ELA provided 1,661  passenger trips to plaza visitors.  

The final Smart Cities Challenge application, submitted on March 5, 2019, outlines how Surrey and Vancouver plan to implement Canada’s first two collision-free multi-modal transportation corridors by leveraging autonomous (driverless) vehicles and smart technologies, including:

• Smart Traffic Signals
• Smart Parking
• Smart Street Lights
• Advanced Data and Analytics

Learn more about Surrey and Vancouver’s Smart Cities Challenge bid.

The City of Vancouver hosted a ELA pilot between Olympic Village Station and Mantioba Station, this pilot that lasted for 10 days. This demonstration was a part of the City of Vancouver and City of Surrey’s joint bid for the Smart Cities Challenge. For the duration of the pilot, ELA provided 2,826 passenger trips to visitors.  

The final Smart Cities Challenge application, submitted on March 5, 2019, outlines how Vancouver and Surrey plan to implement Canada’s first two collision-free multi-modal transportation corridors by leveraging autonomous (driverless) vehicles and smart technologies, including:

• Smart Traffic Signals
• Smart Parking
• Smart Street Lights
• Advanced Data and Analytics

Learn more about Surrey and Vancouver’s Smart Cities Challenge bid.

ELA was deployed in the City of Beaumont (CoB), operating for a six-month period within mixed traffic in the suburban community. While ELA has been making strides in autonomous technology exploration across Western Canada since 2018, this pilot was the first time the technology has been fully integrated with traffic, traffic technology, and pedestrians. Deploying ELA for this duration in mixed traffic, provided PWT and the CoB with first access to learning, testing, and applying cutting edge ideas and technologies that have the potential to impact how we plan and develop transit systems for municipalities in the future. It also helps understand how this quickly evolving technology could support existing local transportation systems.

The pilot was scheduled to run for 180 operational days, Thursdays through Mondays, starting on April 18, 2019, and ending on October 7, 2019. It was deployed in 3 Phases:

1. Phase One: was a 600-meter route (one-way), with 3 stop locations. During Phase One, the AV crossed 1 pedestrian crossing and 1 controlled intersection.
2. Phase Two: an increase in route length to 848 meters (one-way), added a 4th stop location.
3. Phase Three: route as identified in Phase Two, plus the addition of V2i Communications between traffic signals and ELA at 3 intersections.

Learn more the ELA Beaumont Pilot here