Singapore's first self-driving vehicle trials take off

Singapore is charging ahead in its long-term efforts to deploy self-driving vehicles and mobility concepts, the StraitsTimes reported. 

Self-driving vehicle trials have started at the research hub one-north, and took off at Gardens by the Bay this month.

The Ministry of Transport also signed agreements with PSA to develop autonomous truck platooning technology for transporting cargo between port terminals, and with Sentosa Development Corporation and ST Engineering to trial self-driving shuttle services across Sentosa.

Formed in August last year to chart the direction for self-driving vehicle-enabled mobility concepts in Singapore, the Committee on Autonomous Road Transport for Singapore (Carts) is working on four tracks:

• Fixed and scheduled services: Efficient mass transport on a fixed route and scheduled basis;
• Point-to-point, mobility-on- demand services: Shared services with dynamic routing, for point-to-point, first- and last-mile type of travel;
• Freight: Carriage of goods for long-distance delivery;
• Utility: Utility operations, for example, road sweepers.

Carts is also encouraging private sector-led trials. The Land Transport Authority announced in January this year the one-north district as Singapore's first test site for self-driving vehicle technologies and mobility concepts.

Since then, the Institute for Infocomm Research under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology have applied for and been granted approval to carry out testing of their self-driving technology there.