Self-driving taxis take to the road in Singapore

Select commuters in Singapore can now hail a ride to work from the world’s first self-driving taxis as the autonomous technology company nuTonomy offers the first rides to the public.

Singapore also has an overwhelming influx of cars on the road, a problem nuTonomy hopes to help mitigate, by reducing the number of cars on the road by as many as 900,000, according to Doug Parker, nuTonomy’s chief operating officer. Ultimately, the model might be adopted in cities worldwide, nuTonomy states. These cars have been made available for members of the public to use as taxis within Singapore, although the predetermined pick-up and drop-off points will only be within a 2.5-square-mile radius. Each auto is fitted with a detection system, as well as two cameras that look out for obstacles.

Although the high-tech cars will drive themselves, each journey will be accompanied by a nuTonomy engineer, who will observe how the machine performs, and be ready to take over in the event of a problem, the company said.

The testing time-frame is open-ended, said nuTonomy CEO Karl Iagnemma.

Eventually, riders may start paying for the service, and more pick-up and drop-off points will be added, while the company works to test similar taxi services in other Asian cities, the USA and Europe. The year before, Nanyan Technological University and several others launched a similar test.

“In Singapore, we have much less uncertainty”, Iagnemma said.

But riders can be assured that the pilot program will still see an engineer in the auto at all times, observing performance and able to take over in the event of an emergency.

However, she quickly relaxed when she realised the vehicle would recognise even small obstacles, like birds and motorbikes parked in the distance.

The US-based startup, which was founded by two researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, began testing a free taxi-hailing service in a small tech district in the city today.

The team behind the autonomous taxis. The Singapore Land Transit Authority pilot program will last for three years with the goal of opening up to the public in 2022.

Incredibly, though – and in a pretty surprising move – a company that goes by the name of Nutonomy has just pipped Uber by rolling out their own electric self-driving taxis in Singapore and actually picking up their first real customers in the process. She said she was nervous at first, then surprised as the steering wheel started turning by itself.

“It felt like there was a ghost or something”, she said.