Singapore has its first self-driving taxi

The first self-driving taxi company went into operation on Thursday (August 25) in Singapore under the name nuTonomy.

While major companies including Google and Volvo have been testing self-driving cars on public roads for years, nuTonomy says it is the first to publicly take passengers on board, beating Uber, which plans to launch a similar model in Pittsburgh in the coming weeks.

The company says a lot of people signed up for the trial, but only a few thousand people got to try it out in the first few months.

The Associated Press also said that "a select few citizens" will get free rides through smartphone registration, but they will need to receive a specific invitation.

Currently, only about 6 self-driving taxis are operating. Photo:Mashable.

Currently, only about six cars are in operation, and that number will double by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, nuTonomy announced, is to have autonomous taxis available nationwide by 2018, which would cut the number of cars on the roads in the country. After that, they will apply it worldwide.

The self-driving taxis are customized from Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV versions, still with a driver to respond to emergencies and a researcher sitting in the back to monitor the computer system.

Each car is equipped with 6 Lidar systems - a system that uses lasers to act like radar, along with 2 cameras on the dashboard to scan for obstacles and observe traffic lights.

The system inside a self-driving taxi. Photo:Mashable.

Now that users can rent cars, nuTonomy says it wants to test a similar service in other cities in Asia, Europe and the US.

Doug Parker, CEO of nuTonomy, said autonomous taxis could reduce the number of cars on Singapore's roads from 900,000 to about 300,000.

"When you cut down on big cars like that, it opens up a lot of opportunities. You can make the roads smaller, you can reduce the amount of parking spaces," Parker said. "I think it will change a lot for people in the city."

Singapore is considered an ideal testing ground because of its climate, infrastructure, and high level of road safety awareness. As a closed island nation, Singapore is looking for unconventional ways to grow its economy, so it supports autonomous vehicle research.

"We are facing a shortage of land and manpower. We want to leverage the power of technology to overcome that disadvantage, and introduce new concepts in the transportation industry to improve Singapore's public transportation," Mashable quoted Pang Kin Keong, Singapore's Deputy Minister of Transport and also Chairman of the Autonomous Vehicle Council.

According to Zing