The Lyrup council has announced today the implementation of a new ‘driverless ferry’, to connect the island of Lyrup to the Riverland mainland. This long overdue change comes after the huge success of Renmark’s self-driving bus, which has inspired other Riverland towns to follow suit. We spoke with Lyrup council member Haiden Bateman on how the new ferry system will work.
“It’s very advanced, one of the first of it’s kind in Australia. The onboard human ferry attendant will simply close the gates after the cars have boarded, and press a button, and the ferry will drive itself to the other side of the river. With this, it’s really going to help bring in more tourists to Lyrup.”
The Lyrup council anticipates this change will draw in record numbers of tourists, with ferry enthusiasts from all around the country expected to visit, to experience the self-driving ferry themselves.
The new self-driving ferry is set to be introduced in July, with the current human ferry driver to be retrained as a ferry attendant, as for safety reasons there must still be a human onboard at all times.
The Riverlanderer 