Singapore to Allow Driverless Cars in 2015!

Many people think of Singapore as just a stopover, but it’s one of my favorite places with a very special food culture.

There are certainly reasonable complaints about the city state, especially if you’re a resident rather than a visitor.

For both better and worse they have a truly unique governance system. They are both restrictive and experimental at the same time. Populist concerns don’t necessarily stand in the way of testing innovation. testing the use of driverless cars in one neighborhood next year, Uber-style it seems.

And either ironically or predictability it’s all a part of Singapore’s social engineering desires:

Lam Wee Shann, director of the futures division for Singapore’s Ministry of Transport, said during a panel held at MIT last month that the government wants to explore whether autonomous vehicles could reduce congestion and remake the city into one built around walking, bicycling, and public transit…

At 700 square kilometers, Singapore is about three times the size of Boston, but it has 5.5 million residents versus Boston’s 646,000. Because it is so dense, Singapore is aggressively trying to discourage car traffic. For example, if you want to own a car in Singapore you have to pay a “certificate of entitlement” fee that’s roughly equal to the price of a car. It also offers free travel on city trains before peak periods (along with free breakfast vouchers).

(HT: Marginal Revolution)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I agree my wife and I love going to Singapore the hotels are fantastic easy to get around great if you are a visitor

  2. Boston doesn’t have 646,000 residents. The market includes the surrounding cities; i.e., try 4 million. Oh, wait, that came from an MIT panel (see Jonathon Gruber)

    ED.

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