Doug Parker, COO at nuTonomy, said “Autonomous taxis could ultimately reduce the number of cars on Singapore’s roads from 900,000 to 300,000.When you are able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot of possibilities”.
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The autonomous vehicle software startup and spinoff of the MIT made its public trial and it is now underway. The service is now being offered to select members of the public, only through invitation.
Although the cars will be self-driving, there’ll still be a driver in the vehicle available to act as a backup in case of emergency and to monitor the performance.
Also, in the beta phase, the company is only working in a coverage area of 2.5-square miles, in a business cum residential district of Singapore, called “One-North” and pickup as well as dropping points are also now designated and are limited to a few selected points. Testers will then be accompanied by an engineer to examine the performance of the system, as well as take over when necessary. It will also collect data regarding the experiences of passengers, and will apply all the changes that need to be applied in time for its trade launch in the year 2018, according to Fortune.
The launch of self-driving taxis by nuTonomy in Singapore comes a few weeks ahead of a similar move by ride-hailing service Uber, which has efforts underway to offer rides in self-driving cars in Pittsburgh in the near future. The company is starting small, with just six cars that will eventually double by the end of the year.
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Running in a small, four square-kilometre area of the western portion of Singapore, the taxi trial consists of a fleet of six electric vehicles, with the company adding its sensors and software to Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MIEV cars.
