The first "taxis without taxi" for a year working in the city Innopolis (ammo1.livejournal.com/733955.html) in Tatarstan. By the way, June 9, 2019, Innopolis was 4 years old.
Unmanned taxi already committed more than three thousand trips without any incidents.
I tried the taxi of the future for yourself.
Externally drone differs from a conventional machine superstructure with three lidar on the roof, on the fourth lidar the grille (where typically logo car manufacturer) and, of course, empty driver's seat.
The machine is called from the normal application Yandex. Taxi. If the start and end point of travel are Innopolis, instead of a conventional cab with a driver arrives drone, with a trip becomes free.
Salon's almost like a normal car. The only difference from the big red emergency stop button and two large vertical plate mounted in front and behind. They are shown how the UAV "sees" the environment.
Now, probably the most interesting - about my feelings on the trip.
So far, the drone is going much more slowly and cautiously than live driver. He "is afraid of everything." As soon as the side tracks on the sidewalk came a woman with a child, the car stopped immediately, "frightened" that they want to cross the road in the wrong place. Just make sure that they just turned onto the sidewalk and walked on it, the car went on.
I tested the unmanned taxi during Cipro conference, during which the machine was put into the passenger seat, "especially trained person ", whose main function was to prohibit passengers to take in the cabin (which is why no previous photo my).
My overall impression of the trip to the unmanned taxi: the technology is impressive and really works, but to the greatest it is far from the city: if half the machines in the city will go slowly and constantly "frightens" tubes are creepy.
© 2019 Alex Nadozhin