Zurich Airport’s (ZRH) autonomous shuttle pilot project has officially begun allowing employees to ride on the buses at the airport, reaching another significant milestone in its journey toward full automation.
Employees have been permitted to ride the buses between the airport head office at Gate 101 and the works yard at Gate 130 at the airport since June.
Currently, each vehicle is manned by a safety driver in case of emergencies, but the Airport has announced an intention to test the use of remote monitoring in the near future.
The autonomous shuttle bus pilot first began at Zurich Airport in March 2025 and has now reached automation level 3.
Raphaël Glaesener, Senior Innovation Manager der Flughafen Zürich AG, said:The next milestone we are striving for is automation level 4. This would mean that there will no longer be any safety drivers on the bus, but only remote monitoring will be implemented.
The previous months have seen the project team at the airport carry out preparatory work with collaborator WeRide, as well as numerous departments within the company, including the implementation of a new IT infrastructure and performance of hundreds of test runs, as well as comprehensive technical testing.
A remote cockpit has now been installed and tested at the ZRH Innovation Hub since September, which will allow for the monitoring of vehicles going forward.
Following a testing phase without passengers, the buses may then be permitted to operate autonomously with passengers on board. If successful, this would mark the first time an airport in Europe has operated such a system within the flight operations area.
