Singapore is an urban city with congested roads. But on the plus side, it has strong infrastructure and academic institutions — perfect for testing out new cutting edge vehicle tech
Walk around the One-North district of Singapore and you might spot a car with a curious little device on its roof, meandering slowly along the road.
The device may not seem like much appearance-wise, but within it houses highly advanced tech that represents a hope — that one day, the human drivers will let computer algorithms take complete control of the wheel.
This vision, if fulfilled, could usher in significant reductions in accidents, less traffic congestions, and more freedom to move about.
Singapore- and US-based autonomous vehicle R&D firm nuTonomy is spearheading this initiative and aims to be one of the top tier pioneers of driverless tech in the region.
In an email correspondence with e27, Doug Parker, COO of nuTonomy, shares on why Singapore is an excellent testing ground for driverless tech and how it would transform the transportation industry.
Here are the edited excerpts:
nuTonomy is based both in the US and Singapore. What parallels exist between both market environments, in terms of business/regulatory, tech, and government support that make it a suitable testbed for autonomous driving tech?
Singapore and Boston are both positive, supportive environments in which we can develop autonomous vehicle technology. Both cities have forward-thinking governments working to put in place a solid regulatory framework to facilitate the commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles.
Both cities also have real needs to be met, including congested urban centers with limited parking, as well as train and bus system with first / last mile issues. Furthermore, both cities have strong academic institutions that support research and develop top notch engineers.
Where the cities are significantly different is in the state of the road infrastructure. The infrastructure in Boston is much older, and the road network was designed centuries ago when people got around primarily by foot or by horse.
One Twitter user joked that testing AV (Autonomous Vehicles) in Boston “is like choosing to play against LeBron in a pickup game.”
Singapore is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Yes, it regularly experiences short thunder storms, but the weather is otherwise mild and the roads are flat and well-maintained.
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Testing AV in both cities ensures that we are developing a global solution. For starters, there are structural differences such as left-hand vs right-hand drive to which our software has to adapt. Testing in both cities allows to collect data for a wide variety of different driving conditions.
When we first started to test our AV in Boston in January of this year, we applied a lot of what we had learned from over a year of operating in Singapore. As we continue to develop our software to meet the challenges of Boston roads, this knowledge is now starting to flow back to Singapore, improving how we navigate traffic on the island.
Tell me about the complexity of developing autonomous driving tech. Does nuTonomy rely on third-party tech for its maps for example or is all the tech developed in-house?
nuTonomy develops software for driverless fleets. It’s extremely complex technology, and we are one of the few full stack companies out there. This includes all the technology needed to power a single vehicle (including mapping), all the way up to the fleet management tools needed to operate thousands of autonomous vehicles, and everything in between.
While nuTonomy is a relatively young company, we are building on top of the decade of pioneering research our co-founders conducted at MIT.
What are the obstacles that nuTonomoy is currently facing in its trials?
nuTonomy has a “safety first” culture. The challenge is this: How do we move quickly and stay at the cutting edge while ensuring that our vehicles meet the highest levels of safety and do not endanger other road users?
We have developed a robust testing process that all new software goes through before it ever is allowed to be used on public roads. This process starts with substantial simulations where we test all new code against a large database of challenging driving scenarios.
Once a new branch of software successfully passes these simulation tests it will then be integrated onto one of our cars and test extensively on a closed course. The first step above can be quickly scaled up using products like Amazon Web Services.
The second step, however, requires a lot of man-hours, and we have invested in building out a strong operations team to help carry out this testing. These two factors, combined, help us rapidly release new versions of software.
How long before mainstream self-driving cars hit the roads of Singapore. Is it going to be an island-wide roll-out?
Technology companies and automotive companies view the world very differently regarding when autonomous vehicles will roll-out. Most automotive companies see the world through the lens of individual car sales. Since most people hold on to their cars for around 10 years, it takes new technologies a long time to reach a critical mass.
Most automotive companies project that autonomous vehicle technology will start to come online between 2025 and 2030. Technology companies on the other hands see the world through the lens of ride-hailing services and fleets of vehicles.
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Due to the cost savings autonomous vehicles will deliver, ride-hailing companies and fleet owners have significant incentive to adopt this technology as quickly as possible. As a result, technology companies predict roll-outs in the near future.
nuTonomy has stated its intention to launch a commercial service in Singapore in 2018. It likely won’t be island-wide at first, but, again, this highlights the difference between automotive and technology companies. Automotive companies sell cars that stay on the road for 10 years, and their products have to be designed to handle every conceivable scenario.
Technology companies sell software, and this can be upgraded over time. Our service will start within a geography where we have high confidence in our ability to deliver safe and efficient transportation. Over time, we will expand out until our cars are operating from Tuas all the way across the island to Changi.
Beyond consumer vehicles, is nuTonomy planning to integrate its self-driving tech with commercial transportation businesses such as logistics? Will the partnership with Grab extend beyond its trial period into commercialisation phase?
The technology nuTonomy is developing has application in a number of different use cases. In addition to passenger vehicles, our software can help power busses, trucks, urban logistics services.
For the time being, we keep our focus on passenger vehicles because:
- It’s the biggest market globally, and
- We want our engineering team to be laser focussed.
Exploring multiple uses cases simultaneously can be distracting and risks dividing the team, slowing down overall development of the core technology.
As we continue to work closely with Grab, we are exploring what a commercial partnership would look like between the two companies.
How would self-driving tech affect the livelihood of commercial car drivers in the future? What are the long-term benefits and trade-offs that will come with the scaling up of the deployment of self-driving cars?
We believe that autonomous vehicles are the future of transportation. There are substantial benefits that this technology will bring. Autonomous vehicles promise to dramatically reduce fatalities and injuries, while increasing accessibility by bringing down the cost of transportation.
Further, because autonomous vehicles will be adopted in fleets, the technology has the ability to drive the adoption of electric vehicles substantially reducing pollution in cities with clean energy sources.
We also believe autonomous vehicles, when implemented as a mobility service in urban centers such as Singapore or Boston, will serve to reduce the number of needed parking spaces and parking structures, allowing valuable urban land to be reclaimed for other purposes such as parks.
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Like many sectors that benefit from technology-led transformation, there will be change, but we believe the overall productivity and safety gains promised by autonomous vehicles will create downstream benefits as the transportation ecosystem becomes more efficient.
Smart governments, such as Singapore, are already starting to think about how to retrain people affected by this technological change so that their city can harness the extensive benefits of AV while minimising the downsides of disruption.
And how should companies mitigate this disruption to their business?
Autonomous vehicles promise companies significant opportunities from the way capital expenditure is structured and managed, through to productivity and efficiency gains.
In economies heavily reliant on over-burdened traditional transportation infrastructure, disruption can be embraced to create more efficient and consistent ways to move people or products; meaning, companies can focus less on logistics and more on value and creating new roles that grow their business.
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Image Credit: nuTonomy
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