Mercedes Reveals The Future Of Public Transport

German automaker Mercedes-Benz has unveiled the city bus of the future in the form of an autonomous concept bus quite appropriately called the Future Bus.

The Future Bus concept recently undertook a 20-kilometre long journey from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport to the town of Haarlem, with a driver sitting behind the wheel doing absolutely nothing other than keeping an eye on the vehicle ready to take over if anything went wrong.

Thankfully, nothing went wrong during the run and the bus negotiated a number of obstacles in the form of intersections, bends in the road and tunnels with the help of its City Pilot system which uses an array of cameras, long and short-range radar systems and GPS to keep the bus on the right path.

To match its name and the job it plans to do, the autonomous bus looks quite futuristic as well. The exterior of the bus features small headlamps up front above which sit two LED Strips that stretch till the centre of the bus where a large Mercedes three-pointed star sits.

The sides of the bus along with most of the front is made of glass. At the rear, the bus features an array of LED lights that are stacked up vertically to form the tail lamps.

Inside, the driver's section of the bus is quite spartan with the steering wheel, pedals and a small display that gives out information regarding the journey and other necessary readouts.

The passenger side of things is a lot more futuristic with LED lights on the roof that represent leaves and grab rails which have been inspired by trees. The seating for the passengers has been designed to offer a premium and comfortable journey experience.