Lai Liao: Driverless Buses to Be in Punggol, Tengah & Jurong Innovation District in 2022


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There are a few things that are confirmed: Justin Bieber is eventually going to marry Selena Gomez, your boss is always in a bad mood every Monday, an MRT train is going to break down later this week and self-driving vehicles are going to be everywhere soon.

Now, we can’t project when Justin and Selena is going to tie the knot, but it’s confirmed that self-driving buses are going to be in three towns come 2022.

(I think by then, Justin and Selena might already have three kids, but who cares)

It’s reported today (22 November 2017) that there would be self-driving buses and shuttles in three young towns by 2022, namely Punggol, Tengah and Jurong Innovation District.

Now, for those who live in Jurong, keep your rotten eggs (or cheers) in your fridge: Jurong Innovation District isn’t exactly the whole of Jurong that we’re familiar with.

It’s an area near NTU, and it’s so new, it will only be completed by 2022.

The self-driving buses and shuttles will only be deployed during off-peak hours, and would initially be rolled out in less congested roads.

This announcement was made during the opening of Singapore’s first AV (autonomous vehicle – which means self-driving vehicles) test centre, which is, well, an apt place for the reveal.

In line with this, there would be a “Request for Information” to gather feedback on this from industry and research institutions. Pretty sure if the feedback is from commuters, they’ll be more concerned on whether transport fees should drop since there’s no driver #justsaying

Autonomous vehicles aren’t a “if” but a “when”: Google, one of the pioneers in developing self-driving cars, even spun out a company known as Waymo to fully focus on this technology.

They initially projected that their self-driving cars would be available for the public by 2017, but the launch date is pushed to somewhere around 2017 to 2020.

And of course, not to mention that Uber itself is developing these vehicles.

Safety is everyone’s concern when it comes to an autonomous vehicle, but given that our lives depended so much on technology (remember how our trains and planes are operated by…software?), let’s just focus on adapting and improving instead of resisting.

After all, take a look at this. It’s a demo of how a Singapore autonomous vehicle stops when a pedestrian decides to DGAF and crosses the road like he owned it.

The software is definitely a better driver than some idiots out there #justsaying


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This article was first published on goodyfeed.com

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Featured Image: straitstimes.com