Self-driving taxi trials begin in Singapore

An American firm named nuTonomy is testing its autonomous motoring software and hardware systems in the relatively benign environment of Singapore.

It's an unprecedented event, and the guinea pigs are invited to take part with the offer of free travel, although it's not as simple as walking outside and hailing one of the autonomous vehicles.

Customers can't choose just anywhere for the taxis to pull up either; they have to end the journey by taxi at the designated point closest to their final destination. And of course they also have to walk to the same designated points for pick-up.

Customers receive an invitation to participate in the trial, but must register before they can avail themselves of the service. To date, relatively few customers have signed up. But the dozens so far are expected to become thousands before the end of the year.

The trial is confined to a 4km² area on the west side of the city, and the company settled on Singapore for its testing due to the city's relatively disciplined traffic flow and high dependency on taxis for getting around. Singapore has long been at the forefront of adopting new technology, a case in point being its willing participation in a forthcoming trial of a passenger-carrying drone by Airbus.

nuTonomy is running a fleet of six electric vehicles – either the Mitsubishi i-MiEV or Renault Zoe. While each vehicle nominally is self-guided, it's not truly driverless as such, being minded by an employee ready to take over the driving duties in the event of an unforeseen incident. The employee is also there to check and assess data on the fly.

Founded in 2013 by two MIT robotics experts, nuTonomy – with a regional office in Singapore – approached the Singaporean government a few months back for permission to run the trial. The testing is already in progress, with the taxis equipped with lasers, cameras and the proprietary software to guide the cars through traffic.

By 2018, nuTonomy expects to have a fully-functioning autonomous taxi fleet roaming the streets of Singapore, but it will have to work fast to keep ahead of other pioneers in the field, among them Uber and Lyft.