Introduction

A few recent developments, such as Google's driverless cars, automated features on various luxury automobile models, and disputes between automobile manufacturers and telecommunication providers on broadband channels, propelled "automated transportation" onto the center stage. As transportation planners, engineers, and decision makers are in the process of evaluating technologies, and developing safety regulations; the general public may get excited, or sometimes anxious. Capturing the momentum of recent critical development in automated transportation systems, it provides a comprehensive and systematic evaluation of automated transit technology and its applications, which may lend some significant lessons for the development of automated vehicles. When zooming into the automated transit family tree, one will notice that there are two main branches under the general umbrella of automated transit: automated buses and automated guideway transit (AGT). There are quite a few sub‐modes under AGT, which includes driverless metro (DLM), automated people mover (APM), Group Rapid Transit (GRT) and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT).