Singapore - A Driverless Sandbox

Singapore's LTA (Land Transport Authority = Department of Transportation) is partnering with Delphi and nuTonomy on an MOD (Mobility on Demand) program that will provide first-and-last-mile services. Nice moxie for a small island nation. 

nuTonomy just issued a press release today that the company has:

... entered into a new partnership with Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) to begin trials of an autonomous mobility-on-demand transportation service. The partnership will expand and accelerate the company’s development efforts in Singapore as it progresses towards the launch of a commercial autonomous vehicle (AV) service in 2018. 

Back in early April, 2016, news broke that Cambridge, MA-based nuTonomy had succeeded in being selected by Singapore to do a driverless taxi-pod pilot project. 

Delphi loving Singapore

For some reason, the Delphi Automotive news is all over, whereas the nuTonomy information is not catching as much buzz. Delphi will be providing the self-driving Audi cars. Here's another article with more details. 

This article makes matters much more clear in terms of the different Singapore projects and what Delphi and nuTonomy are doing.

And a testing facility

Perhaps in a bid to get beyond low-speed shuttles and taxipods, Singapore is also opening a small driverless testing facility. In its ambitious quest, the country is also working on being a forerunner in driverless regulation, though another island nation is the first with that.