Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

TRAVEL NEWS

World’s first self-driving electric ferry takes to the water in Stockholm

Want to take a self-driving electric ferry between Stockholm islands? Now you can do just that.

Published: 9 June 2023 06:08 CEST

World's first self-driving electric ferry takes to the water in Stockholm

The Zeam's MF Estelle, the world's first commercial autonomous electric passenger ferry, at its inauguration at Norr Mälarstrand in Stockholm. Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP

The ferry set sail in Stockholm on Thursday, making the Swedish capital the world’s first city to put the technology to use, the company behind it said.

A captain oversees the autonomous craft but doesn’t need to touch the controls, and from Monday, the MF Estelle – named after Sweden’s Princess Estelle – will begin plying short routes between Kungsholmen and Södermalm in Stockholm.

Torghatten CEO Stein Andre Herigstad-Olsen said that eventually, the idea is to make the vessel “fully autonomous”, with no need for an onboard supervisor.

The system already “sees like a captain”, he said.

The boat is fitted with radar, cameras, lidar laser and ultrasonic systems, compiling the data to steer its course, the Norwegian company’s operative chief Erik Nilsson said.

“If a boat changes direction or if there’s a canoe we see it right away in less than a second. We update the course accordingly,” he added.

The first ten-metre boat cost around $1.6 million and will be able to carry up to 30 passengers. A single ticket will cost around $3.

It’s hoped the ferry will encourage Swedes to walk or cycle to work rather than taking the car. The firm wants to increase the number of shuttles in Stockholm and abroad. The ferry initiative was a private and public cooperation and partly EU-funded.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

'It's the cold weather': How Sweden's tiny gaming startups became world leaders

“It’s the cold weather – you sit inside, you game, you don’t really have anything to do outside,” Philip Westre, who co-founded the small game developer Landfall, mused when asked to explain the success of Sweden’s gaming industry.

Housed in a villa in a sleepy suburb west of Stockholm, the studio – which has around 10 employees – has just had a surprise hit of its own.

The walls of the small corner office are adorned with inspirational artwork from Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, framed covers of old games and a shelf with plush toys.

In line with their tradition of new releases on April 1st, they recently published their latest game: “Content Warning”.

The object of the goofy multiplayer romp is to film your friends being scared and upload the videos to the imagined social media platform SpookTube – hoping for them to go viral.

WORKING IN SWEDEN:

How to switch to a career in Sweden’s booming gaming industry

To help get the ball rolling, Landfall decided the game would be free for one day, but did not invest in any advertising.

To the company’s surprise, over six million people jumped at the offer in the first 24 hours.

Programmer Zorro Svärdendahl said one of the company’s goals was to beat their previous record for the number of people playing at the same time on gaming platform Steam.

Known as concurrent players, the metric is commonly used in the industry to assess a game’s popularity. Landfall’s previous record was 29,000.

“Day two, I think we reached 200,000 … which is pretty wild,” Svärdendahl told AFP.

Moving fast

Content Warning is only the latest example of small Swedish teams finding massive success.

In early 2021, the Viking-themed Valheim – created by a five-person team – was released by the studio Iron Gate and quickly found a global audience, going on to sell over 12 million copies.

Another breakout hit, Raft – where players are tasked with surviving aboard a raft floating in the ocean – was created by three students attending Uppsala University.

The most famous example is of course Minecraft, which was first developed by one person: Markus “Notch” Persson.

Since its original release on May 17th, 2009, Minecraft has become the best-selling video game in history, with the company Mojang announcing in 2023 it had surpassed 300 million units sold.

“I think that small teams can work and move really fast,” Svärdendahl said.

Decisions can be made by individuals based on what feels right, rather than having to negotiate approvals through multi-tiered corporate bureaucracy, he explained.

Svärdendahl believes the more nimble approach of a smaller team was key to the success of Content Warning, which was developed in a mere six weeks.

But some of Sweden’s game developers have grown into major studios with hundreds of employees, such as Dice – creators of the Battlefield series – and Massive Entertainment – currently developing the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws.

The Nordic country is also home to video game behemoth Embracer, which controls a slew of studios and owns the Tomb Raider franchise.

Despite having a population of just 10.5 million people, Swedish games have been downloaded seven billion times, according to the Swedish Games Industry, which estimates that every fourth person in the world has played a game made in Sweden.

In 2022, the country’s game developers had a combined revenue of 32.5 billion kronor ($3 billion).

Per Strömbäck, president of the Swedish Games Industry, said several factors explained the country’s gaming success.

It has a number of quality schools training a competent workforce, as well as a culture conducive to teamwork.

‘Self-fulfilling prophecy’

In addition, Sweden’s small size meant developers sought out an international audience early on.

“We now also have several decades of tradition in the industry,” Strömbäck told AFP.

The first seeds of the Swedish scene can be found in the “nerd culture” of the 1980s, he said.

The pioneers learned programming on Commodore 64 computers, while they picked up game mechanics from role-play games.

“Nobody then realised that it would become a billion-dollar industry,” Strömbäck said.

At Landfall, Westre pointed out that Swedes are also big gamers themselves.

“Gaming culture is very, very strong here, both on gaming and development,” he said.

Svärdendahl added that the culture had begun to feed itself, with younger developers inspired by their predecessors.

As “a really big Minecraft fan”, he himself was psyched when he learned the game had been developed in his home country.

“It’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because I knew people made games in Sweden, I knew I could make games in Sweden.”

Article by AFP’s Johannes Ledel

Url copied to clipboard!