Use Your Phone to Hail a Self-Driving Taxi

Singapore has broken new ground by becoming the first place to offer a self-driving taxi service which can be hailed via an app.

Grab, the South East Asian Uber-style app is offering the opportunity to book self-driving cars as taxis, via their smart phone app.

Grab has teamed up with self-driving car start-up NuTonomy in order to provide this self-driving taxi service.

To hail a self-driving cab, Grab users can select the ‘robo-car’ icon within the app.

As this recent development is only in its test phase, two engineers are travelling in each self-drive car at all times, and rides are currently being offered free of charge. The vehicle will only currently operate in a self-drive capacity within a 1.5 mile area of Singapore. If passengers wish to extend their journey outside of this area, an operator can take over the wheel and allow them to continue their journey to their chosen destination.

The partnership between Grab and NuTonomy is initially for two months, which may be extended, depending on its success.

Fellow taxi services Uber and Lyft are also both currently looking to offer this service. Uber are working with Volvo, and have previously had some vehicles to test with passengers inside. Lyft have plans to test their own self-driving fleet of Chevrolet Bolts in the near future.

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