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| SINGAPORE – The world's first self-driving taxis will be picking up passengers in Singapore starting Thursday. 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 based in Massachusetts and Singapore. Multiple companies have been testing self-driving cars on public roads for several years. But nuTonomy says it will be the first to offer rides to the public. The taxis only operate in a 2.5-square-mile district called "one-north," and there are specified pick-up and drop-off points. Each one has a driver in front who is prepared to take back the wheel and a researcher in back who watches the car's computers. |
manh george : 11:03 am
No, they aren't going to be here for widespread use by next Tuesday. Nevertheless, the march is apparently on.
Quote:
NuTonomy, a self-driving company that spun out of MIT and is based in Cambridge, MA and Singapore, has just launched the first-ever public test of a commercial fleet of fully self-driving cars.
The company, which will be testing its ride-hail service in a Singaporean business district called 1 North, has been testing its self-driving technology in the area since April and was chosen to be the Singapore government’s official partner in the development of this technology earlier this month. NuTonomy plans to deploy a full fleet of vehicles — at least 1,000 — in Singapore by 2018.
Through the test, a select number of people will be able to hail one of six nuTonomy cars — either a Renault Zoe or a Mitsubishi i-MiEV that the company has retrofitted with sensory and self-driving technology — using the company’s proprietary ride-hail app. A nuTonomy engineer will remain on board to ensure the system is working properly and to take over if needed.
http://www.recode.net/2016/8/25/12639472/nutonomy-self-driving-taxis-singapore
A good timeline toward widespread use--and massive implications for employment and the auto industry--is linked. This timeline puts commercial trucks in the 2017-19 time period, which may make sense for long-haul if state regulators go along. Individual use is more like 2020-23, with the crisis for the auto industry projected in the 2025-30 period.
Only discussed briefly, but city planners will have to start incorporating car sharing into their thinking very soon, and self-driving not too much later. No sense building infrastructure now that will be obsolete less than halfway to its useful life.
Link - ( New Window )
Fixed, defined routes and schedules; conspicuous vehicles that surrounding traffic generally avoids; and relatively steady speeds.