Our portfolio company Applied Autonomy has reached a landmark milestone — the Norwegian Public Roads Administration has granted permission to run an autonomous bus on a live public route in Stavanger, with no safety driver behind the wheel.
Applied Autonomy was co-founded in Kongsberg in 2017 by Kongsberg Innovasjon and Olav Madland, with the ambition of building a world-leading environment for autonomous transportation. Nearly nine years later, that ambition has taken a defining step forward.
The approval covers the operation of a Karsan autonomous e-ATAK bus within the Kolumbus network in Stavanger, operated by Vy. It is powered by Applied Autonomy's xFlow® platform — a fleet management system that allows a single remote operator to monitor and support multiple autonomous vehicles simultaneously from a centralised hub.
"With xFlow®, there is a clear path to significant cost savings. By optimizing operations and shifting roles from manual driving to advanced fleet management and remote passenger care, we can deliver more public transit for every dollar spent. This is the key to making autonomous buses a commercially viable solution rather than just a pilot project."
— Olav Madland, CEO, Applied Autonomy
The milestone addresses one of Europe's most pressing public transport challenges. The continent is estimated to face a shortage of over 105,000 bus drivers, threatening the reliability and expansion of transit networks. Applied Autonomy's approach — decoupling the need for a physical driver from each vehicle — offers a scalable answer to that problem.
As a co-founder and long-term investor, we at Kongsberg Innovasjon have followed this journey from the very beginning.
"A milestone for Applied Autonomy, accepted as the first operator in Europe to remove the driver on an operational bus route."
— Svein Olav Torø, Chairman of the Board, Applied Autonomy & CEO, Kongsberg Innovasjon
