Autonomous Vehicles has come closer to us as we circled
around today’s prosperous technology, from railway trains to automotive
industry. According to Matthew DeBord , Autonomous podmobiles cars from google is one
of the most successful companies so far to developed a driverless car using
various sensors, radars, cameras and a
powerful mapping tool which is integrated in its car. Including other
driverless tech companies like Apple, Tesla and Ford, likewise, are using
similar technology to develop their own driverless car in their own unique ways
to contribute to the future technologies. (DeBord, 2016) This is indeed a substantial change in
the autonomous/driverless technology for the past decade and eventually gaining
a foothold in every country moving towards a smart nation.
In Singapore, likewise, The trial run for driverless vehicle
has seen improvement over a period over two years in One-North public roads and
has seen expanded to other residential areas from National University of Singapore
(NUS) , Dover and Bouna Vista. (Channel NewsAsia, 2017) This trial not only
allow engineers and companies to improved on their technology, but will also
allow the government to put in place different scenarios and situations in
Singapore for the driverless car to ensure the readiness when it is put on
autonomous mode in future.
Since the inception of an autonomous vehicle in Singapore,
there will be more infrastructures in place by difference phrases to cater to
the driverless technology. As Singapore is a small city with a high cost of
owning a car, consumers will benefit from these autonomous vehicles by 1)
reducing the stress of driving; 2) decline of human errors, thus reducing the
rate of accident; 3) congestion on the road decreases hence employees would increase
punctuality at work; 4) consumers can spend time doing other activities while traveling;
5) reducing of parking space in offices and home hence able to re-used the
parking space for other better purposes and conducting activities for the
community. Stating all these wonderful benefits, Governments, corporate
companies and consumers would be supportive of such autonomous vehicles in the
future. (James M.
Anderson)
However, today, we will be moving towards a smart nation
with autonomous vehicle's technologies in our everyday lives. Various areas still
required our further considerations for 1) our local transport industry will be
hit badly, with many taxis and bus drivers fearing for their livelihood; 2)
road user's reaction to an autonomous vehicle without having sufficient
knowledge of how these autonomous vehicle systems operates and behaves, hence
jeopardizing the safety of all road users. ; 3) Technical glitch or computer
malfunction hence causing an accident; 4) due to a bad weather, vehicle sensors
may be impaired causing the autonomous vehicle to go off route. ; 5) security crises
where terrorism may hacked into the
autonomous vehicle and create a tool of mass destruction. Understanding these
limitations of autonomous vehicles we need to first acquire the trust of the
consumers and road users and to ensure that these vehicles deployed on the
right track. (Kyriakidis, 2017)
Autonomous vehicle will not only provide safer driving thus
reducing in accident rate, It will also impact the economic by reducing health
care cost in every country. Revenues from vehicle insurances will decline as
lesser consumers will own an autonomous car due to high cost.
A majority of the
consumers will shift towards not owning their own transport, but instead take
the shared driverless car which is available by using an app in their mobile
device. A new business model by these affected companies is a must to sustain
in this new era of technologies. Perhaps we will see more new startups taking
the opportunity to their advantage.
References:
Channel NewsAsia. (2017, June 23). Retrieved from Autonomous vehicle trials to be
expanded beyond one-north: Khaw Boon Wan: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/autonomous-vehicle-trials-to-be-expanded-beyond-one-north-khaw-8972562
DeBord, M. (2016, September 19). Business insiders.
Retrieved from Here’s all of the self-driving tech companies are currently
using on their cars:
http://www.businessinsider.sg/driverless-technology-in-cars-2016-9/?r=US&IR=T
James M. Anderson, N. K. (n.d.). OBJECTIVE
ANALYSIS. EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS. Retrieved from Autonomous Vehicle
Technology: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR443-2.html
Kyriakidis, M. (2017, April 20). Straitstimes.
Retrieved from Human-system interaction key to autonomous vehicles:
http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/human-system-interaction-key-to-autonomous-vehicles
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