Dubai's transport authority has started a trial run of a driverless vehicle with Sustainable City in Dubailand.
Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) said it has recently embarked on phase 4 of the Driverless Vehicles Project on a track extending 1,250 metres.
The step is a part of RTA’s efforts to boost the Dubai Government strategy to raise the share of autonomous transport to as much as 25 percent of public transport means by 2030.
“The trial run of the autonomous vehicle has started in the Sustainable City following three stages of successful test runs. The new phase, which will continue until the end of this September, is part of RTA’s plan to test the driverless technology means under Dubai’s climate conditions,” said Ahmed Bahrozyan, CEO of RTA’s Public Transport Agency and chairman of Smart and Sustainable Transport Committee.
The smart vehicle, which was manufactured by EasyMile Company, can accommodate eight riders. It travels on short distances on pre-programmed routes under multi-user environments. It moves on virtual tracks that can be configured easily to make abrupt changes to meet demand.
The latest trial run is part of an agreement signed recently with Diamond Developers Company, the developer of the Sustainable City project.
“The Sustainable City has endorsed the use of electric and sustainable vehicles as a mean of public transportation and also as service vehicles throughout the City,” said Faris Saeed, CEO of Diamond Developers Company.
“The introduction of driverless vehicles in Sustainable City is a future step towards using the smartest public transport means. It supports Dubai’s Smart City initiative and the Government’s strategy for driverless mobility, which will pave the way for more sustainable solutions in this regard,” he added.
The vehicle has electric powered batteries that can operate for eight hours and can travel at a speed of 20km/h. It can detect any object within 40 metres, and slow down automatically when an object appears within two metres. The vehicle comes to a complete stop when the object approaches less than two metres.
