Photos: South Korean capital launches self-driving bus experiment

Seoul: South Korea's capital launched its first self-driving bus route on Friday, part of an experiment which engineers said aims to make people feel more comfortable with driverless vehicles on the roads.

The new vehicle does not look like a regular bus and has rounded edges along with large windows that make it appear more like a toy than a technological breakthrough.

This design is intentional, said Jeong Seong-gyun, head of autonomous driving at 42dot, the start-up responsible for the self-driving technology that is now owned by auto giant Hyundai.

"This is the future," he told AFP, adding that the bus required "a considerable new type of design". The bus looks a bit "like Lego" and is made of composite parts to help keep costs down and make it easy to replicate, he said.

It uses cameras and lasers to navigate the way instead of expensive sensors, Seong-gyun added.

The company's goal was to make the technology low-cost, safe and easily transferable to many types of vehicle in the future, for example delivery trucks.

For now - with a safety driver monitoring closely - the bus will drive itself around a small 3.4-kilometre (2.1-mile) circuit in downtown Seoul that takes around 20 minutes.

The public can board at two designated stops after booking a free seat through an app.

A designated stop for the country's first self-driving bus route.

Pedestrians stop to look at an information display at a designated stop for the country's first self-driving bus route run by 42 Dot.