No wonder, Uber is all set to take its chances pretty high with some positive reviews in the coming years. As on now, groundwork is being laid upon by the company to test drive the self-driving cars in Washington DC, the nation’s capital.
It was not back, when this one company which was ridesharing on with its users, started mapping along Washington DC streets. There are 3 vehicles (mapping) which got a camera-equipped and also some best of sensors, will be spending their few weeks taking the city ride and then collecting data for the furtherment.
With the best of ideas, there also needs some advancement in the technologies and this is what the self-driving vehicles will be operating with, i.e., the High-definition maps for the best enroute locations. These new and advanced technologies in the cars will be like a helping hand to secure and safely navigate through the surroundings around.
Later this year, we can also see this self-driving tester running and testing the autonomous vehicles. No timelines as such have yet been committed along as for what they plan now as to move ahead with is, mapping the data, which will be a great help towards the scenarios being captured. It will all be city unique in simple terms and there will be some virtual tests to look for how these vehicles can handle such in an environment which is stimulated.
No doubt, the city of Washington DC holds a history of technology development for solving the issues as regards the mobility and as per what UBER says, this was one biggest opportunity which made them choose the place. Trends show, it was DC where the bike-sharing, ridesharing and even shared scooters got adopted faster and better. So, why not Uber? Why will leave along that chance to get the right adoption for the things they plan to implement?
Dallas, Toronto and even San Francisco fall under the category where Uber already completed mapping. Pittsburgh though becomes the 1st place wherein the vehicles run by Uber are being operated autonomously, where the self-driving team of Uber is based.
Waymo is one tough competitor for Uber and it is already running tests in Texas and New Mexico, with the self-drive minivans and also the tractor-trailers. The company did work in Austin too, but last year was a pull out for same. It seems Arizona and Detroit are the most focused with efforts by Waymo.
Arizona was one place where Uber did have some self-driving tests but in the year 2018, march, it was forced to stop. This happened because of the hit and kill case by the autonomous vehicle, therein. As per what the investigation released in November by National Transportation Safety Board Investigation say, the driver of Uber test was distracted over the phone and the safety culture of the company was inadequate which contributed towards the crash, causing a pedestrian, its life.
As per the NTSB reports Uber was credited for investigation co-operation and further making some extreme safety changes in the vehicles used therein. So, it’s like Uber is on the go and one might see a lot more in the coming years.