Decision on Driverless Taxis in Singapore

Ms Sun Xueling asked the Minister for Transport how is the trial operation of nuTonomy driverless taxis progressing and what benchmarks will the Ministry use to determine when driverless taxis can be rolled out in more parts of Singapore and its associated timeline.

nuTonomy is one of four organisations, besides the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*STAR) Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Alliance for Research and Technology and Delphi Automotive Systems, that is testing self-driving vehicles at one-north. nuTonomy started trialling on a six-kilometre test route in April 2016, and since January this year, they have expanded their testing to a 12-kilometre route. I am told that their trials have generally been smooth except for an incident last year. nuTonomy's aim is to gradually expand their trials into larger and more complex environments.

Significant challenges have to be overcome before self-driving technology is ready for widespread deployment. Self-driving vehicles need to be able to co-exist safely with a high volume of human-driven vehicles, cyclists, people on personal mobility devices, and pedestrians. They will need to be able to deal with unexpected situations, like fallen tree branches or jaywalkers. In Singapore, they also need to function effectively under low visibility conditions, such as during heavy rain or haze. Industry experts expect the technology to reach that state in about 10 to 15 years. In the meantime, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) will continue to work with the participants to expand the area and complexity of their trials progressively.