Can robotaxis be the vehicle of the future?
Autonomous vehicles hold exciting yet ominous signs for transportation in the future
OON MARCH 19, 2018, an autonomous Uber cab killed a woman walking with her bicycle in Tempe, Arizona, usa. Local police say the car did not slow down even when the woman was standing right ahead. Though an operator was inside the car, no case has been registered against him. Uber has put off further trials. Three accidents involving autonomous vehicles (AV) have taken place in usa in the last two years. In January this year, an AV of Tesla in California was not able to recognise a stationary fire truck when the vehicle in front suddenly changed lanes. The car rammed into the fire truck but the driver was safe. In February, 2016, one person lost his life in an accident as his semi-autonomous car could not differentiate between “the white side of a tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky” in Florida.
AVs may be hogging headlines for all the wrong reasons, but they are changing the face of transportation systems. Using the artificial intelligence system, AVs are making inroads in various parts of the world. Tesla has sold more than 120,000 cars with built-in autonomous features in the US. Recently, Uber bought 24,000 autonomous suvs from Volvo for its operations in the US. The Swedish government has launched a large-scale experiment to understand the interaction of AVs with humans. A similar project is underway in the UK. In Germany, the road and transport company, Deutshe Bahn, along with the technology company, Easymile, has started a fully autonomous bus service in Bavaria. The bus can carry six passengers at a time and travels for around 700 m. It has been envisioned as part of a larger integrated transport system.
Google’s Waymo is offering free rides to people in Arizona, usa, to try out its newlylaunched mass produced self-driving minivan, the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid. The minivan is being used as a robotaxi service. Waymo has also tied up with Chrysler to build fully autonomous cars. Automobile manufacturers like Ford, General Motors (GM) and Toyota are planning to upgrade their current fleet of cars with autonomous technologies. GM is currently leading the competition with the acquisition of autonomous technology starts-ups like Cruise Automation and Lyft.
In India, companies like Tata, Mahindra and Infosys have launched autonomous technology projects which are in various levels of development. There are also a number of Indian technology start-ups that are working on cheaper modules of AV technologies. For instance, Flux Auto, Ben-