ITS Monday: Edition 20, 2026

We took a self driving car on the road for 100 days to see how it handled itself – these are the mistakes it kept making

Zuduo Zheng, Professor, School of Civil Engineering, The University of Queensland, writing in The Conversation. “Over the past 100-plus days, my colleagues and I have used a Tesla Model Y with FSD every day on Queensland roads. We recorded more than 500 safety-critical events where the system required driver intervention or revealed an important limitation in how it interpreted the road environment.”

Related iMOVE articles:

• Autonomous Driving: Info, Projects & Resources
• Autonomous Driving Technology: Info, Projects & Resources

Related iMOVE projects:

• CAVs and the environment: A cleaner future?
• CAVs and Australians: Attitudes, perceptions, preferences
• Safely deploying automated vehicles on Australian roads

Mega-wombats and the Raised Crossing Society of Australia and NZ

This is a post from Prue Oswin’s LinkedIn account. “Another reason for establishing the Society was to challenge some common perceptions about where raised crossings can be used. These included perceptions that raised crossings were only suitable on streets with very low speeds and volumes of traffic, or high place values, or existing traffic calming or placemaking to slow vehicles down.”

Related iMOVE articles:

• Vulnerable Road Users: Info, Projects & Resources
• Road Safety: Info, Projects & Resources

Tropic Wings – Sustainable Transport in Tourism – Industry Blueprint for the Deployment of Electric Buses by Private Operators

This is a report downladable from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) website. “This Industry Blueprint for the Deployment of Electric Buses by Private Operators contains real‑world insights, data‑driven analysis and practical recommendations from the Tropic Wings electric bus deployment, covering fleet planning, charging infrastructure, operational optimisation, total cost of ownership, and key challenges to accelerate private sector electric bus adoption in Australia.

You will also find information on Australian seasonal electric bus performance in a tropical wet/dry season environment, survey results highlighting the positive EV sentiment Tropic Wings experienced with their customers and tips to future proof your electrification journey.”

Related iMOVE articles:

• Electric Vehicles: Info, Projects & Resources
• The Conductor Series: The electrification of transport

Related iMOVE projects:

• Enabling accessible electric vehicle charging
• Leading the charge in bi-directional charging
• Utrecht to Australia: Unlocking scalable, low-cost V2G
• Being a V2G trailblazer: Lessons for mass market adoption

‘I did it because…’: pedestrian decision-making at road crossings in a longitudinal Virtual Reality study with automated vehicles

A new academic paper, co-authored by Sachita Shahi, Ashim Kumar Debnath, Stewart Birrell, Ben Horan, Saif Alatrash, and William Payre. The abstract:

Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) face the highest risk of road accidents. Various innovations aim to enhance their safety, including the development of Automated Vehicles (AVs). As AVs get integrated into traffic, VRUs might interact with them at crossings. To ensure efficient development of AV, it is crucial to understand how VRUs adapt their behaviour and make road-crossing decisions infront of AVs.

This paper is part of a longitudinal Virtual Reality (VR) experiment where participants crossed a road under varying environmental conditions. Interviews were carried out using self-confrontation technique, where participants watched a video of their road-crossing, then reflected on their decisions. This method helps explain quantitative data but rarely used in pedestrian-AV studies. Inductive content analysis was used to analyse the transcripts, categorising findings into two dimensions.

The findings reveal that participants’ decision-making varied across the scenarios and experimental groups. The two general dimensions- human-computer interaction and user experience can guide the design of a framework to understand pedestrian-AV interactions.

The analysis provided deeper understanding of pedestrians’ crossing behaviour, highlighting factors influencing decisions and behavioural adaptation. Gaps in AV communication were identified and design recommendations for signalling, emphasising the need for intuitive, pedestrian-friendly AV behaviour to enhance safety was provided.

Australia’s first electric articulated bus unveiled

“Western Australian Premier Roger Cook was on hand with WA transport minister Rita Saffioti to unveil the Volvo BZL Electric Articulated bus. Featuring a body locally produced by Volgren in Western Australia, the bus will run for the Public Transport Authority.”