World’s first self-driving taxis hit the streets in Singapore

The world’s first self-driving taxis took to the road in Singapore on Thursday, August 25, 2016, beating Uber to the punch. NuTonomy, founded by two researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), began testing six autonomous vehicles in a 2.5 square-mile Singapore business park.

This is the first time anywhere in the world that anyone can grab a ride from a robotic vehicle on public roads. Initially, as part of the trial, the company will not be charging for the rides. Riders will use nuTonomy’s own app to hail a Mitsubishi i-Miev or a Renault Zoe.

The test vehicles will be accompanied by a computer engineer and backup human driver during its trial phase just in case anything goes wrong. Each car is fitted with six sets of Lidar, a detection system that uses lasers to operate similarly to radar, including one that continuously spins on the roof. Additionally, there are two cameras on the dashboard that scan for obstacles and detect changes in traffic lights.

NuTonomy’s ultimate goal is to have a full self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, helping to cut the number of cars on the city’s congested roads. Doug Parker, nuTonomy's chief operating officer, said that autonomous taxis could reduce the number of cars on the road from 900,000 to 300,000. Eventually, the company hopes the model will be adopted in cities around the world.

“When you are able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot of possibilities. You can create smaller roads, you can create much smaller car parks,” Parker said. “I think it will change how people interact with the city going forward.”

Source: Mashable