Driverless taxis speed ahead with Dubai's new testing zone

An autonomous transport zone in Dubai will offer a glimpse into the future as the city aims to make a quarter of all daily trips driverless by 2030.

From 2026, a 15-square-kilometre testing zone for autonomous taxis, deliveries and other service vehicles will be established in Festival City and Dubai Creek Harbour to evaluate how driverless transport will work on a larger scale.

The announcement was made on the opening day of the Dubai World Congress for Self-Driving Transport.

Five international firms entered bids to operate transport within the zone, and the chance to win a $3 million prize.

“From next year onwards, we will start introducing about six or seven different autonomous systems in that zone and all will be integrated with each other,” said Ahmed Bahrozyan, chief executive of the RTA’s Public Transport Agency.

"We want to challenge ourselves, and our partners, to say 'wherever I want to go within that zone, I should be able to go using an autonomous service in Dubai'.

“This is really what the Dubai autonomous self-driving strategy is all about.”

How will it work?

Passengers will begin their journey on the Metro system, arriving in the designated zone before hailing an autonomous taxi, shuttle bus or hopping on to an autonomous abra. The area will be connected to six other zones with similar autonomous capabilities.

Comparable pilot projects for autonomous vehicles have taken place around the world, including in China, the US and Singapore.

Meanwhile, WeRide has announced plans to expand its smart fleet of autonomous taxis into Al Maryah and Al Reem Islands.

Speaking on a panel at the event, Dr Hua Zhong, senior vice president of engineering at WeRide, said the company’s robotic fleet was ready to be used in Dubai.

WeRide vehicles will soon be a common sight in Dubai. Antonie Robertson / The National

“Dubai is a very busy city, but the traffic is just like other huge cities in China or the United States,” he said. “Also, the temperature here is really hot, so we have already been doing safety tests and operations in 11 countries, and more than 30 cities. We think our technology can handle the unique challenges here.”

Driverless taxis could become a familiar sight on the busy roads of Dubai, following months of extensive safety testing.

Under a partnership between Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority and Chinese firm Baidu, 1,000 autonomous vehicles will be introduced gradually until 2028.

A trial of 50 of the black and green branded Apollo Go cars has been taking place for months, collecting data and conducting safety tests.

Winning public trust in the safety of autonomous vehicles is a key aspect of bridging the gap from hype to the reality of bringing driverless taxis into the everyday transport network, said Ammar Albreiki, chief operations officer of Dubai Taxi Corporation.

“The latest AV vehicles have a 360-degree awareness, from the outside and inside of the vehicle, which translates into fewer accidents and will bring more reliability,” said Mr Albreiki during a panel on steering the future of Dubai’s autonomous taxi project.

“Instead of relying on corrective maintenance, this means all this data that we're receiving from the sensors will provide more predictive maintenance and a better customer experience.

“A public-private partnership is very important to make this work. As we progress, we're building more trust. We want to be a benchmark in Dubai and make it a scalable fleet which is part of the people's ecosystem, a system that connects with different modes of transport, connects with the Metro and connects with the last mile.”

Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?

The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.

Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.

New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.

“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.

The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.

The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.

Bloomberg