Self-driving taxis take to the streets in Singapore
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THE world’s first self-driving taxis began picking up passengers in Singapore yesterday.
Selected members of the public can hail a free ride via their smartphones in taxis operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle software startup. While multiple companies, including Google and Volvo, have been testing self-driving cars on public roads for several years, nuTonomy is the first to offer rides to the public.
Its launch in Singapore is beating ride-hailing service Uber, which plans to offer rides in autonomous cars in Pittsburgh, by a few weeks.
NuTonomy is starting small — six cars at present, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, company executives say, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, to help cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. Eventually, the model could be adopted in cities around the world, nuTonomy hopes.
For now, the taxis only run in a 6.5-square-kilometer business and residential district called “one-north,” and pick-ups and drop-offs are limited to specified locations. Riders must have an invitation from nuTonomy to use the service. The company says dozens have signed up for the launch, and it plans to expand that list to thousands within a few months.
The cars — modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrics — have a driver in front who is prepared to take back the wheel and a researcher in the back who watches the car’s computers. Each car is fitted with six sets of Lidar — a detection system that uses lasers to operate like radar — including one that constantly spins on the roof. There are also two cameras on the dashboard to scan for obstacles and detect changes in traffic lights.
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. NuTonomy also is working on testing similar taxi services in other Asian cities, the US and Europe, but he wouldn’t say when.
“I don’t expect there to be a time where we say, ‘We’ve learned enough,’” Iagnemma said.
Doug Parker, nuTonomy’s chief operating officer, said autonomous taxis could ultimately reduce the number of cars on Singapore’s roads from 900,000 to 300,000.
“When you are able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot of possibilities. You can create smaller roads, you can create much smaller car parks,” Parker said.
NuTonomy, a 50-person company with offices in Massachusetts and Singapore, was formed in 2013 by Iagnemma and Emilio Frazzoli, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who were studying robotics and developing autonomous vehicles for the US Department of Defense. Earlier this year, the company was the first to win approval from Singapore’s government to test self-driving cars in one-north.
Singapore is ideal because it has good weather, great infrastructure and drivers who tend to obey traffic rules, Iagnemma said.
Olivia Seow, 25, who works in startup partnerships in one-north and is one of the riders nuTonomy selected, took a test ride of less than a mile earlier this week. She said she was nervous when she got into the car, and then surprised as she watched the steering wheel turn by itself.
“It felt like there was a ghost or something,” she said.
But she quickly relaxed. The ride was smooth and controlled, she said, and she was relieved to see that the car recognized even small obstacles like birds and motorcycles parked in the distance.
“I couldn’t see them with my human eye, but the car could, so I knew that I could trust the car,” said Seow.
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