That’s still an open question, especially in light of ongoing safety concerns, but one company is aiming to be the first in Singapore.
MIT-based startup nuTonomy has a pioneering plan to bring driverless taxis to the world’s only island city state in order to act as a more convenient form of public transit and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The company has already tested their autonomous vehicles in a custom obstacle course in Singapore and looks to be getting approval for on-road testing in a business district dedicated for autonomous vehicle testing called One North.
Bringing Driverless Taxis to Singapore
The startup’s taxis optimize their paths for passenger pick up and drop offs in order to reduce congestion and are expected to be cheaper than Uber and local taxis, thanks to their lack of driver fees.
nuTonomy co-founder and CTO Emilio Frazzoli has stated that nuTonomy’s taxis utilize advanced fleet management, which uses algorithms derived from his work on coordinating swarms of drones to allow a minimal number of cars to service people around the city.
The taxis also use LIDAR to detect not only objects on the road but also nearby landmarks, providing more accurate localization. This would be beneficial in allowing the cars to use surrounding buildings for positioning when it might be difficult to detect objects on the ground, such as in heavy fog or rain.
Why Singapore?
A 2014 paper published in the book Road Vehicle Automation by the company’s chief technology officer estimated that a fleet of 300,000 autonomous taxis could do the work of the 780,000 privately owned cars currently operating in Singapore while keeping waiting times under 15 minutes.
The startup is focusing on Singapore because the country is projecting a 30 percent increase in population within the next 20 years. Consequently, Singapore is intent on reducing traffic congestion and envisions autonomous taxis as a substitute for more expensive public transit infrastructure solutions.
nuTonomy doesn’t believe that the autonomous taxis will disrupt the jobs of public transit operators since Singapore has a lack of available transit operators for night shifts.
The success of the project could pave the way for other cities around the world to follow suit in the future. As autonomous vehicles developed by nuTonomy and the heavy hitters like Google, Tesla and Uber begin to gather more attention, they will likely gain more mainstream support as a solution to mobility issues in areas experiencing severe traffic congestion.
nuTonomy was launched in 2013 as an autonomous car consulting service before it pivoted to an autonomous taxi service provider in 2015. The startup has also partnered with multiple automotive companies, including Jaguar, to test and develop their software.
For more information, visit the nuTonomy website.