Delphi to Launch Autonomous Vehicle Ride-Hailing Test in Singapore

Next year Delphi Automotive plc will begin testing a fleet of six autonomous vehicles in a ride-hailing program in Singapore. The supplier plans to announce similar programs in North America and Europe later this year.

Delphi will manage the three-year Singapore consortium, which is part of an autonomous vehicle initiative the city-state formed in 2014 to oversee and manage driverless car research and testing. The group is in the process of selecting several other companies to join the project.

Delphi plans to retrofit six electric vehicles with an array of more than 24 sensors, including cameras, radar, lidar and ultrasonic units, for the program. Vehicle selection will be finalized within the next few months.

The supplier also is developing a cloud-based “mobility-on-demand” software system and advanced computer algorithms to manage fleet operations and automated driving functions.

The Singapore fleet initially will include on-board “safety drivers” who can take control of a vehicle if there’s a malfunction. Delphi aims to eliminate such backups by the final year of the program in 2019. At that time, the vehicles will be programmed to pull to the side of the road if a problem is encountered.

The vehicles will operate at a top speed of 25 mph along three routes within an existing business park to ferry a select group of users between their homes or offices and traditional mass transportation stations. Delphi used precise three-dimensional mapping to plot the routes, which cover a wide-variety of landscapes, earlier this year with four Audi SQ5 crossover vehicles (pictured) that are equipped with self-driving technologies. Singapore’s Land Transport Authority will outfit the business park with roadside beacons that can communicate with the vehicles.

The consortium also hopes to add package delivery services from local businesses to the Singapore tests, Glen De Vos, vice president of Delphi’s service business unit, tells reporters at a media briefing at the company’s headquarters in Troy, Mich.

Users will summon the automated vehicles via a smartphone app. Details such as whether people will be charged to use the system, hours of operations and other features haven’t been finalized.

Delphi, which completed a cross-country test of a self-driving Audi SQ5 in the U.S. last year, says the Singapore program will allow it to experiment with various service features, capture a large amount of real-world data and monitor how customers use the system.

Following the pilot program, Singapore aims to launch a fully autonomous ride-hailing service by about 2022. Delphi currently has a production facility and a research and development center in the country.