The first autonomous taxis around the world have begun to pick up passengers in Singapore.
Through their cell, a select group of people started on Thursday to ask for free these taxis, managed by nuTonomy, software company autonomous vehicles.
While companies like Google and Volvo have been testing driverless cars on public roads for years, nuTonomy says it is the first taxi service to passengers. their Uber competition, which plans to offer similar taxis in Pittsburgh in a few weeks early.
The service began with few cars, only six now, and will increase to a dozen by the end of the year. The goal, say representatives of nuTonomy, is to have a fleet of taxis in Singapore for 2018, which would reduce traffic on congested highways. Ultimately, the model could be adopted in other cities.
For now, taxis are only doing rounds in a commercial and residential district called “one-north” of 6.5 square kilometers (2.5 square miles) in length, and points of ascent and descent are limited to specific locations. In addition, passengers must have a nuTonomy invitation to use the service. The company says that dozens of people have signed up for the launch, and plans to expand its list thousands of individuals within a few months.
The modified electric vehicles Renault Zoe -autos and Mitsubishi i-MiEV- come front with a driver who is ready to take the wheel and a researcher at the back observing computers car. Each vehicle has six pairs of Lidar -a detection system that uses lasers to operate as a radar-, including one that constantly rotates in the ceiling. It also has two cameras on the instrument panel to detect obstacles and changes of light at traffic lights.
The trial period has no definite end period, the president of nuTonomy, Karl Iagnemma said. Eventually, passengers will have to pay for the service, and more points will be added up and down. He said nuTonomy is also working to offer similar services in other cities in Asia, US and Europe, but did not say when that would happen.
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