Singapore is aiming to become the first country in the world to operate a fleet of automated taxis after city authorities signed separate deals with nuTonomy and Delphi Automotive to test the possibilities of autonomous technologies during the course of the next year.
A small fleet of six vehicles will travel around a 3.5 mile business park, carrying passengers at a cost potentially reduced from $3 to 90 cents per ride. The cars will initially have drivers, purely as a safety precaution, but the pilot does include plans to phase out humans altogether by 2019. At that point, the goal is to have fully autonomous vehicles without steering wheels to be tested with what Delphi Automotive describe as a “controlled group of people”. The project ends in 2020 with a view to deploying on a larger scale after that.
Software will allow commuters to book the cars in much the same way as is done with services such as Uber and Lyft. Authorities in Singapore view self-driving vehicles as a long-term solution to the country’s congestion challenges.
Delphi Automotive is expected to announce similar trials in the U.S. and Europe in 2017, they are the same company that conducted a coast-to-coast demonstration of autonomous technology in the U.S. last year. nuTonomy is a startup, originally emerging from MIT, which hopes to operate a fleet of five to 10 electric running in the same area by 2018.
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