Driverless taxis are now in Singapore. Self driving and autonomous cars are appearing everywhere these days, even though they have never been passed for use by any world authority. What is now appearing to be permitted are so-called driverless taxis. They must have drivers present to take over control of the vehicle if things should go wrong. Fully autonomous vehicles are not yet allowed. The real deal still has a way to go yet!
In Singapore, it is claimed that you can take a ride in a driverless taxicab for free. However, as the saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch – there is always a catch! In this case, it is that the Singapore trial is exactly that – a trial. Nevertheless it claims to take things a bit further than Uber or Google. How much further?
To start with, as with other trials carried out by Uber, Tesla and Google, there is a driver! Although the vehicles are claimed to be driving themselves without human intervention, driverless taxis in Singapore will have a human sitting right there to take over in the event of something going wrong. That is always going to be a problem. Things tend to go wrong very rapidly on the highway and in city driving. Do human drivers watching on and potentially relaxing have the reactions fast enough to take over in the event of an imminent collision? The test might answer that.
So how about the Singapore self driving car trial? What vehicles are involved? Not Tesla – not Google – not Ford – not Uber. Not even Flyt, but a company known as nuTommy. This is start-up based in the USA involved in software development for autonomous cars. Founded by two MIT researchers in 2013, nuTommy has offices in Singapore and the US. The company will operate the first so-called driverless taxis in Singapore.
The Singapore government has given nuTommy permission to test driverless taxis with passengers in a small part of the city. The vehicles involved are small electric cars manufactures by Mitsubishi and Renault. They have been fitted with nuTommy cameras and software.
Don’t get alarmed! This is not the first time that this company has been involved in driverless car technology. It is not completely new. Back in 2014, it carried out trials with electric golf carts. These new taxi trials do not involve golf carts but six genuine vehicles. They have each been fitted with a monitoring system using lasers that work much the same as radar to monitor the surroundings of the vehicle. They also have cameras fitted that operate with the software system.
The trials are restricted to a very small part of Singapore. It is a 2.6 sq. mile area that is situated well away from the city center. The pick-up and drop-off points have been preprogrammed into the software, so passengers cannot choose anywhere to get on or get off. It must be at a pre-designated spot. In addition to these restrictions, the self driving cab test is not for the general public. You must first receive an invitation from nuTommy and then register.
Although this first trial involves only a few dozen people, it will be expanded out to thousands of selected people within a few months. Singapore was chosen because traffic is usually fairly light – nothing like Manhattan on a Monday morning! People tend to use cabs because they are fairly inexpensive, while car ownership is the exact opposite. Only for the rich!
The ultimate aim of nuTommy is to have a complete fleet of driverless taxis in Singapore by 2018. A lot will depend upon the success of the trials and on self-driving car legislation – not to mention the cost of insurance! nuTommy is a new company in this field, but it by no means leads the pack. Uber’s trial starts in Pittsburg shortly and many others are in the race to get the first autonomous cab approved for public use and – more importantly – for sale.
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