According to the Vancouver Sun, a Vancouver-based tech startup called Spare is part of a Norwegian/Canadian consortium that was selected as one of five competitors in an experiment to test fleets of automated buses in six different European cities.

​Initially launched as a platform for arranging carpools, Spare has experience applying its technology to on-demand service-scheduling for transit systems in Oslo and Stavanger, Norway, which led to it being invited to join SAGA, the Norwegian-based team, according to Spare CEO Kristoffer Vik Hansen.

“It tells us people are confident in what we’ve done so far has some real legs,” Hansen says via the Vancouver Sun about Spare’s invitation to SAGA’s shortlisted bid. “And (that) there is some seriously good technology being developed in Vancouver.”

Hansen founded Spare along with fellow former University of B.C. computing science and engineering students Alexey Indeev and Josh Andrews, as the three developed an app-based ride hailing service that matched commuting drivers with passengers willing to carpool.

“Basically, what it does is it fundamentally looks at how can I pool passengers into vehicles (going to common destinations)?” Hansen explains. “And how can I route those vehicles to make the most-efficient pickups and drop-offs possible?”

The service, known as Spare Rides, launched in 2016, and ran until early 2018. Hansen says that once the platform was established, it wasn’t too difficult to apply the firm’s method to other types of transportation like more flexible, on-demand forms of public transport, with the idea being that buses run when passengers book trips via a smartphone app, website or phone reservation, instead of passengers having to follow fixed schedules on bus routes.

According to Hansen, the system collects information to create a “data-first” approach to scheduling transit more flexibly. This includes everything from planning the most efficient fixed routes to deciding when it’s better to run strictly on demand and even offering door-to-door service.

Hansen says that once this type of on-demand technology is applied to transit generally, the natural extension will include platforms such as driverless, autonomous transportation systems that are currently being developed.

Through the European Union-funded experiment for Future Automated Bus Urban Level Operation Systems (FABULOS), Spare will provide the passenger-booking, dispatching and vehicle-routing system for SAGA’s bid. SAGA is one of five finalists selected for the “pre-commercial procurement” phase of the project. The next step for each bidder is to develop a feasibility study, which will include designing the system’s architecture and methods for integrating their technology.

FABULOS will put the most promising ideas into prototypes for lab testing this fall, and starting next year, the three best prototypes will be put on the road for testing in small fleets of buses in Estonia, Finland, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal.