Testing of driverless cars on public roads to start soon

By March, a small fleet of driverless cars will start plying the one-north area as Singapore joins an exclusive but growing group of countries testing autonomous vehicles on public roads, reported The Straits Times.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) and JTC Corp have earmarked a 6km test route in the research hub for the trial. Although the circuit consists mainly of low traffic roads, there are stretches with moderately heavy traffic, such as Portsdown Road and Ayer Rajah Avenue.

Some likely participants have been sounded out for the one year exercise, which may be extended. These include the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (Smart), A*Star and ST Kinetics.

The Straits Times understands that LTA is also reaching out to car manufacturers that are working on autonomous technologies, such as Daimler and Nissan.

Dr. James Fu, project leader of Smart's autonomous vehicle section, said although research in the field is being carried out by several parties, there is not much sharing of information. He said, "We're not sure how exactly others are doing this, but we're trying to see how we can do it." Smart will be using an electric Mitsubishi iMiEV that has been retrofitted to be self-driving.

Dr. Fu said one objective of the test is to advance research on the 'decision making process' of autonomous vehicles, such as how a driverless car behaves at a junction, for instance.

While semi automated vehicles are already available at showrooms, fully automated models are unlikely to be on sale until at least 2020. Industry experts said this is mainly because of legislation lagging behind technological advancements.