Share a Ride
Ridesharing has become an increasingly common form of transportation over the years — and it looks like it’s the way of the future. Some benefits to ridesharing include shared costs (so that you pay less for transportation), the luxury of a commute via car versus public transit, and reducing our carbon footprint. Ridesharing can also help to reduce the number of cars on the road, which will hopefully lead to less traffic congestion. Uber has its own ridesharing service in the form of uberPOOL, and Tesla recently announced plans for a ridesharing program in 2017.

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By offering a more efficient transportation method and a reduced need for parking spaces, self-driving cars will be a huge asset to the ride sharing business and community. This option will be especially welcome in cities, where there is limited space. Limited space calls for fewer parking spaces, and thus more expensive parking options. Just think of all the money you’ll save once this future of ridesharing is realized.

More Efficient Trains
You may have heard of bullet trains, which offer high-speed transportation. Beyond that, there’s the Shanghai Maglev Train, which can go at a speed of 270 mph. But in the future there will be trains that can go into hyper-speed. Just ask Elon Musk about his idea for the Hyperloop train. His vision for the Hyperloop includes train travel that’s faster than a bullet train, and even faster than an airplane with speeds of more than 700 mph. A faster train means a more weather-resistant train, in addition to a quieter and smoother experience.

Airplanes and Flying Cars
Flying cars are in the works, too. Some of the best options currently include Skycar and AeroMobile, and they could be available for commercial use within the next five years. To take this further, Uber wants to eventually have a self-driving flying car rideshare service. As for the future of airplanes, they could become electric, according to Elon Musk. Otherwise, like future trains, these airplanes will be quieter, smoother, and greener — but not necessarily faster. According to NASA, they may also include folding wings and virtual reality windows.

How do these self-driving cars crash? Well, in the case of the incidents above, it’s human error — and not at all the error of the self-driving algorithms that direct the car. Instead, these accidents are the result of people rear-ending these cars that have been either stationary or traveling at five miles an hour or fewer.

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Redesigns by Google and designs from other self-driving car companies have disguised these sensors to better help the cars blend in with general traffic and maybe help avoid more rear-end collisions from distracted drivers in the future.

With laser, radar, sonar, and video sensors on these cars, there’s a 360-degree view of the road that’s taken into consideration. With more than a million and a half logged miles for these self driving cars, there haven’t been any serious accidents. In fact, it is believed that the cars have even helped to prevent some accidents from happening in the first place.

For now, humans are seated inside, ready to take over when necessary. Sometimes, it is necessary. There may be problems with the sensors or something going wrong with the steering or braking, in which a human driver needs to quickly take control.

Analyzing Scenarios
In the case of the self-driving Google cars, the driver is given audio and visual signals that they need to take over. No matter what conditions are on the road, or why a human takes over the wheel, these scenarios are played out in Google on a powerful software.

This software is able to predict the reaction of others in regard to the test scene. It can then figure out whether or not the car was taken over because it was going to cause an accident or if the human driver took over for a reason other than one pertaining to safety.

Self-driving cars could open up a world of possibility. Elderly or handicapped drivers, who can no longer drive on their own, could one day still maintain a sense of independence, getting from here to there in a self-driving car.

For anyone that’s had to utter that often ignored word, or failed to flag down taxi after taxi, it’s no wonder that the new self-driving taxis in Singapore and Philadelphia are making big news.

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Self-Driving Taxis in Singapore from nuTonomy
Singapore company nuTonomy launched its new self-driving taxi service just days before US company Uber was able to get their cars on the road. The six, shiny new nuTonomy cars are located in “one-north,” a small business district.

Since this is a trial period, nuTonomy is equipping the cars, Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV, with a backup human driver, in addition to a computer engineer. This way, the company can be prepared for any mishaps along the way.

The Singapore government has outlined a series of milestones for the nuTonomy test to achieve before it will be allowed to expand. Still, nuTonomy already has its eye on the surrounding area. It’s only a matter of time.

Uber Launches Self-Driving Taxis in Philadelphia
On the other side of the world, Uber is the first stateside company to launch self-driving taxis, currently with “safety drivers.” These four Ford Fusions are equipped with sensors, cameras, and radar to help the cars maneuver, brake, steer, and accelerate. Volvo XC90s should be making an appearance soon as well, with a recent deal between Volvo and Uber paving the way for the new addition.

Why self-driving taxis? Uber co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick and Otto founder Anthony Levandowski made the following announcement on the company website:

“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.”

Those are some really big numbers. Are self-driving cars the wave of the future? According to nuTonomy and Uber, the answer is “Yes!” With big players including Tesla Motors, Google, General Motors, and then some each hopping onboard, many believe the time is now to embrace this new technology.

In fact, Ford plans to have self-driving cars available for consumers out and available by 2021. The way we travel will be forever changed.