tech

World's first self-driving taxis debut in Singapore

7 Comments
By Annabelle Liang and Dee-Ann Durbin

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7 Comments
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Why? Taking away jobs for taxi drivers who already suffer from Uber. how does this deal with "constraints in land and manpower"? and if pick up and drop off are limited to specified locations isn't this just a tiny bus or tram? Feels like technology for the sake of it rather than anything of great use to society.

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Feels like technology for the sake of it rather than anything of great use to society.

I imagine this is just the first step, with the goal being able to operate like a real taxi eventually. It not the type of thing where you can just go all guns blazing from the start, people could die if things go wrong so they are taking small steps one at a time.

What I don't understand is how this is supposed to reduce the number of cars on the road? Wouldn't these cars just be replacing manned taxi's? Or is the goal to make them so cheap and efficient that people decide they don't need to own their own cars anymore?

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Why? Taking away jobs for taxi drivers who already suffer from Uber. self driving cars will in the near future be far safer than human drivers, have less accidents and cause fewer deaths than human drivers, including taxi drivers. In 10~20yrs time when self driving cars are more previalant and the road deaths decrease. you have to ask yourself would you ban self driving cars because theyre taking away the jobs of human drivers even if it means the road deaths will increase also!

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What I don't understand is how this is supposed to reduce the number of cars on the road? Wouldn't these cars just be replacing manned taxi's? Or is the goal to make them so cheap and efficient that people decide they don't need to own their own cars anymore?

Imagine efficiency improvement; a self-driving car could drive all day serving multiple persons, so why would you own a car right? I think in the future the need for car-possession will fall dramatically.. Imagine that streets will get rid of most cars and car spaces, making space for green or play areas, even less noise on the street! :D

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@Wakarimasen cars spend 95-96% of the time parked. In major cities, like Singapore, where there isn't enough space, you would think this is a terrible waste. So cars going underutilized and taking up a lot of space is really inefficient. With the introduction of self driving vehicles you are going to see a gradual decline in vehicles purchased, vehicles on the road and that 96% we talked about earlier going way down.

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"The cars have a driver in front ... and a researcher in back..." -- So you replace one taxi driver with two peoples, and you get a much restricted taxi with limited destinations, reduced efficiency, and higher cost. So basically, this is a research project.

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So basically, this is a research project.

Sure. Is there something wrong with that?

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