PHOTO
20 June 2017
Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) on Monday announced it will start trials of autonomous air taxis - or flying passenger drones - in the fourth quarter of this year.
The authority signed an agreement with German firm Volocopter, which specialises in the making of driverless air vehicles, according to a report by Dubai’s Gulf News newspaper.
The RTA had earlier this year announced plans to embrace driverless vehicle technology and by 2030 it is aiming that one in four journeys in the emirate will be driverless. The move will also help free up lands dedicated to car parking spaces to be used for new urban development projects.
The authority last February agreed to buy 200 electric vehicles from Elon Musk’s Tesla, which will be fit to be used as driverless cars.
Popular ride hailing service Careem said it will be ready to modify its technology to adapt to the new driverless car technology when and if it gets implemented in Dubai.
“We will bring the best services to make (the driverless technology) accessible to customers," Mudassir Sheikha, CEO and co-founder of Careem said in his speech at the Global Manufacturing and Industrialization Summit that took place in Abu Dhabi last March.
Careem’s rival Uber had already started a pilot program for driverless cars in the United States earlier this year, but the program was suspended after one of the vehicles was involved in a crash.
Further reading:
© Express 2017
Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) on Monday announced it will start trials of autonomous air taxis - or flying passenger drones - in the fourth quarter of this year.
The authority signed an agreement with German firm Volocopter, which specialises in the making of driverless air vehicles, according to a report by Dubai’s Gulf News newspaper.
The RTA had earlier this year announced plans to embrace driverless vehicle technology and by 2030 it is aiming that one in four journeys in the emirate will be driverless. The move will also help free up lands dedicated to car parking spaces to be used for new urban development projects.
The authority last February agreed to buy 200 electric vehicles from Elon Musk’s Tesla, which will be fit to be used as driverless cars.
Popular ride hailing service Careem said it will be ready to modify its technology to adapt to the new driverless car technology when and if it gets implemented in Dubai.
“We will bring the best services to make (the driverless technology) accessible to customers," Mudassir Sheikha, CEO and co-founder of Careem said in his speech at the Global Manufacturing and Industrialization Summit that took place in Abu Dhabi last March.
Careem’s rival Uber had already started a pilot program for driverless cars in the United States earlier this year, but the program was suspended after one of the vehicles was involved in a crash.
Further reading:
- Driving development: Dubai's transport plans could free up half its car parking spaces for new construction projects
- Driverless cars, boats and aircraft key to Dubai's 2030 strategy
- Dubai's RTA to cover 25% of the emirate in new transport strategy
- If a driverless vehicle crashes or kills someone, who is to blame? The owner? The manufacturer? The software engineer? City authorities?
- The rise of robot cars: latest trends in driverless vehicles
© Express 2017
