Uber hurled a pioneering driverless car service for passengers. This was an ambitious experiment done by the company ahead of Detroit auto giants and Silicon Valley rivals using state of the art technology that revolutionizes transportation.
A fleet of cars equipped with lasers, cameras, and other sensors but without a driver was deployed for the web-based ride service on the challenging roads of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It aims to pick up regular Uber passengers who are used to being fetched by cars with human drivers on the wheels.
Though the cars and their backing technology were trained on the city's complicated road grid in less than a couple of years, the demonstration rides showed a very promising outcome. The launch showed that it's very able to handle most situations just like human drivers.
To minimize the risks that come along with this experiment, the Pittsburgh Uber regulars who called a driverless car will be given two company technicians who will ensure that nothing goes wrong. One of them will sit behind the wheel while the other will monitor the car's behavior.
Uber did not give a timeline but aims to have only one technician who will sit behind the wheel to meet existing state policies that require a human driver in a car. But the ultimate goal is to have no technician along the ride at all and has to get zero interventions.
Many automakers are now ready to manufacture cars with advanced driver assist technology, particularly Tesla. Uber, however, was beaten by Singapore who put six cars on the roads a few months before the former's ambitious experiment took place.
Singapore experiment is only limited to smaller areas and on a very well-planned and flat Southeast Asia island while Uber is within a major US city with very steep hills, old narrow streets, and multiple bridges and motorways. Uber has succeeded a groundbreaking experiment with a very promising result.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
