Grab to trial driverless staff shuttle from its office to one-north station

From July 9, employees of ride-hailing platform Grab will be able to make use of a driverless shuttle covering a 3.9km fixed loop between the company's office in Media Circle and one-north MRT station.

- Lee Nian Tjoe

While the 22-seater electric bus is self-driving, a safety operator will be seated behind the wheel ready to intervene as needed, as required by the Land Transport Authority (LTA), which grants the permit to run such tests.

Under the six-month pilot programme, the shuttle service will initially operate at off-peak hours on weekdays.

When it is not used to ferry employees, the bus will be used for training and technology development work. It is a regular electric minibus that has been fitted with sensors and software for autonomous vehicle capability by Autonomous A2Z, a South Korean technology company.

The vehicle has 11 sensors, including light detection and ranging systems, radars and cameras. Before being deployed, it went through over 100 hours of training on the route between Grab's office and the MRT station.

During a 15-minute demonstration drive on the fixed route on July 8, the bus executed all the driving functions independently, including changing lanes to avoid illegally parked vehicles and responding to changing road conditions.

On a separate demonstration that same day, the shuttle slightly overshot the stop line at a traffic junction when the light was red before coming to a stop.