In a quiet corner of the Czech Republic, a sleek train named Edita is rewriting the rules of rail travel. It’s not running on a closed-off metro line or shuttling between airport terminals. This one glides through open countryside, across level crossings, past farm fields—and it’s doing it without a human at the controls.

Built by Prague-based transport tech firm AZD, Edita is Europe’s first driverless train to operate in an open environment where anything can happen—wandering livestock, unpredictable cars at crossings, even the occasional hare making a dash for the tracks. Unlike autonomous systems confined to sealed infrastructure, this is rail autonomy in the wild.

Packed with cameras, lasers, satellite navigation, and a finely tuned digital map, Edita doesn’t just know where it is—it knows what’s in its way. When a hare appeared on the line during a recent test, the train slowed and calmly informed the crew of the situation. Another time, a herd of sheep forced a full stop. In both cases, the system responded with the kind of situational awareness normally expected from a human driver.

The 24-kilometer track between two small towns was abandoned over a decade ago, but AZD revived it in 2016 and turned it into a proving ground. Since April, Edita has logged more than 1,700 kilometers with passengers on board, building a case for a future where trains run themselves yet still coexist with the unpredictability of the real world.

For now, Czech law still requires a supervising driver, but the train’s systems control everything—traction, braking, and speed—with remote operators able to intervene from a control room if needed. It’s a hybrid stage, where humans are present but the AI is already doing the driving.

The implications are huge. If Edita proves reliable, it could unlock autonomous regional rail that operates at night, on lightly traveled routes, or in remote areas where staffing is a challenge. It could also radically cut operational costs while maintaining safety—something no airport shuttle or metro loop has had to prove in open, rural terrain.

As one passenger watching the onboard live feed of the track ahead put it: “There are autonomous cars and planes—why not trains?”

The question isn’t whether Edita will be the last of its kind. The question is how quickly the rest of Europe will follow.