Singapore is expected to again show that their government can be quite innovative and action oriented. Singapore plans to allow a trial of self-driving taxis on Singapore’s roads.

A Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) is a research consortium that’s applied to run the driverless taxi pilot project on the normal public roads in Singapore.

Singapore Is Already Planning for a Future of Driverless Taxis

the basic idea will be that people can book a driverless ride via a smartphone. Initially service will be limited to the “one-north” district of Singapore, a massive business park full of biomedical, digital media, and technology companies. The first round of rides will be free, he says, and might be restricted to “one-north” employees.

Frazzoli says SMART was the first applicant for the trial, and hopes to get its testing permit soon. When approval does arrive, the consortium plans to role out a modest robotaxi trial in “one-north” within about six months. But Frazzoli believes Singapore has much bigger plans for driverless cabs; he thinks officials will broaden the program to the whole city-state within about a year.

Driverless cars really seem to be expected, by those who should know, to be on the roads much sooner than I ever thought possible. It is great to see Singapore leading in this effort. This is exactly the type of thing Singapore needs to pursue to continue to succeed economically.

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