Construction
worker injured after taxi drives into Bugis+ unit
SINGAPORE: A construction worker was injured after a taxi
crashed into a shop under renovation at Level 1 of the Bugis+ mall
on Monday night (Apr 11).
The accident, which occurred at about 10.55pm, involved two
taxis, according to the police.
"The unit affected is undergoing renovation works, and a
construction worker was unfortunately injured," a mall spokesperson
told Channel NewsAsia.
The worker is currently warded in hospital for observation, he
added.
The affected area was cordoned off after the accident. The
cordon was removed at 2.15am on Tuesday after the area was
certified safe by an independent professional engineer, the
spokesperson said. He added that the mall's management is assisting
authorities with their investigations.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said it received a call
at about 10.55pm on Monday requesting for assistance at Queen
Street, located behind the shopping mall. SCDF said it despatched
an ambulance and conveyed one person, who suffered minor injuries,
to Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Investigations are ongoing, the police said.
- CNA/dl
Driverless
taxis could ply Singapore's streets this year
SINGAPORE: A US-based startup, nuTonomy, is developing a fleet
of driverless taxis to ply the streets of Singapore, according to a
March report in MIT News, a publication of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT).
The startup, an MIT spinout, touts driverless taxis that follow
optimal paths for picking up and dropping off passengers, as well
as cheaper rides as there is no need to pay drivers. The taxis will
be electric cars, which produce lower levels of greenhouse gas
emissions than conventional vehicles. The tests will start this
year, reported IEEE Spectrum.
The taxis will also use "advanced fleet management" to reduce
the number of vehicles needed, a "formal logic" that tells taxis
when low-priority "rules of the road" can be broken, as well as
LIDAR data for better localisation, said MIT News.
The driverless taxi has passed its first driving test in
Singapore, according to co-founder and CTO Prof Emilio Frazzoli,
who is also an MIT professor of aeronautical and astronautical
engineering. MIT News said this means that the taxis have navigated
a custom obstacle course without incident.
nuTonomy closed a US$3.6 million seed funding round in January.
Launched in January 2013, the startup pivoted to a full-fledged
autonomous taxi service provider for Singapore in 2015, according
to MIT news.
Prof Frazzoli has been part of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for
Research and Technology (SMART) Future of Urban Mobility project
since 2009, with the aim of developing driverless taxis. He is
currently the lead Prinicipal Investigator at the department, and
in 2014, was announced as part of the Committee on Autonomous Road
Transport for Singapore.
Part of nuTonomy's 25-member team comes from the team that
developed autonomous golf carts that were tested in the Jurong Lake
District in 2014, reported IEEE Spectrum. The golf carts were a
partnership between SMART and the National University of
Singapore.
- CNA/av
