Self Driving Uber Introduced In Pittsburgh
Starting today, select Uber users in Pittsburgh can ride in its Self Driving car. One and a half year ago, Uber aimed to make self driving car a reality and to achieve it, Uber hired researchers and established Advanced Technologies Center (ATC) in Pittsburgh. Uber launched 14 Ford Fusions equipped with cameras, radar, and other sensors in Pittsburgh. After calling for a pickup, if available, the self driving Uber will be sent with a safety driver to ensure passenger’s safety in case of any mishappening.
It’s Uber’s research exercise. What The company need is to know about how these driverless cars will act in real world, how these car react to passengers, and how passengers react to them. “Real world testing is critical to the success of this technology,” stated Uber in an article.
The article further reads, “Of course, we can’t predict exactly what the future will hold. But we know that self-driving Ubers have enormous potential to further our mission and improve society: reducing the number of traffic accidents, which today kill 1.3 million people a year; freeing up the 20 percent of space in cities currently used to park the world’s billion plus cars; and cutting congestion, which wastes trillions of hours every year.”
These cars have safety drivers because in many conditions like bad weather, these cars will require human intervention. “Even when these technology issues get fixed, we believe ridesharing will be a mix—with services provided by both drivers and Self-Driving Ubers,” said Uber.
Uber is initially offering pickups in a few Pittsburgh neighborhoods but it will cover northern suburbs and the airport within a few weeks. The company claimed that these cars will be on road 24 hours a day.
These self driving cars are pre-loaded with maps and other general information like speed limits so that whenever they are on streets, they could focus on real-time happenings like pedestrians.
“Our ATC efforts combined with our recent Otto acquisition mean we have one of the strongest self-driving engineering groups in the world, as well as the experience that comes from running a ridesharing and delivery network in hundreds of cities. And our existing partnerships with drivers, as well as new ones with manufacturers like Volvo, will ensure a world-class customer experience for generations to come.”
