Singapore will on Thursday host the world’s first self-driving taxis to offer rides to the public.
Advertisement
While plenty of firms around the world are investing heavily in developing their own driverless vehicle systems, NuTonomy also has local competition from automobile technology supplier Delphi, which aims to start testing a similar self-driving taxi service next year.
Self-driving taxis came into focus after Uber Technologies Inc said it will soon allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon autonomous cars with their phones.
The trials on the smartphone app-based service follows an agreement earlier this month between NuTonomy, a startup set up by two former MIT experts in the areas of robotics and intelligent vehicle technology, and Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) to begin trials of an autonomous mobility-on-demand transportation service.
A number of carmakers and component makers are developing technology for self-driving cars that they are targeting at ride-hailing companies.
Select members of the public will be able to hail a free ride through their smartphones in taxis operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup. And riders must have an invitation from nuTonomy to use the service.
While the plan is for the robo-taxis’ software to make all decisions on the movement of the vehicles, there will be a nuTonomy engineer riding in the front seat to take control if needed. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help to sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads.
Invited members of the public can summon a vehicle from a fleet of six reconfigured Renault Zoes and Mitsubishi i-MiEVs to ferry them within a 200-hectare research and high-tech business park.
NuTonomy actually started life in the USA, founded in 2013 by Karl Iagnemma and Emilio Frazzoli of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Advertisement
“When you’re able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot of possibilities”, NuTonomy CEO Doug Parker told AP. Earlier this year, the company was the first to win approval from Singapore’s government to test self-driving cars in one-north.
