ComfortDelGro rolls out invitational rides on its autonomous shuttle service in Punggol

SINGAPORE – From April 7, Punggol residents and grassroots community leaders are invited to try out ComfortDelGro’s (CDG) autonomous vehicle (AV) shuttle service in the housing estate before bookings are open to the public.

They can choose between two routes – one is a 12km loop with seven stops connecting homes, transit nodes and key amenities in the Punggol housing estate that takes about an hour to complete, while the other is a shortened segment of the loop that takes about 30 minutes.

This comes after Grab started offering free public AV rides in the estate on April 1.

Rides on the CDG-operated routes during this phase are free of charge, and the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has no planned maximum number of riders or a definite timeframe for when public rides will start. There is also no indication of how much the rides will eventually cost when revenue service begins.

This is a similar approach to the AV shuttle routes in Punggol operated by Grab with AV company WeRide. For those routes, Grab hosted community rides from Jan 12, before making them available for public booking on April 1.

Grab’s service operates two routes from Punggol West to East and North, while CDG plies between Punggol East and North.

As with the Grab-operated AV shuttle service, safety operators will be seated behind the steering wheel, ready to take over control if necessary. A CDG spokesperson said that the vehicles can operate safely even if the data connection is down.

Progress on the development of the CDG-operated AV shuttle service was disrupted for around two weeks when a safety time-out was called after an AV collided with a road divider on Jan 17. LTA investigations revealed the accident happened when the safety operator took control of the vehicle after it had correctly responded to an object on the road.

LTA and CDG have since reviewed the operating protocols for transitioning between autonomous and manual driving. LTA also imposed additional autonomous driving mileage for CDG to complete before progressing to the latest phase.

All safety operators also underwent a week-long in-person refresher course by CDG’s partner Pony.ai, Mr William Tan, CDG’s fleet manager for the AV shuttle service project, told The Straits Times on April 7 at the media preview at Punggol Northshore.

Pony.ai is the Chinese company that supplied the five AVs and the related technology.

Mr Tan said that besides the refresher course, CDG is also monitoring the safety operators’ behaviour more closely than before, and making more stringent daily checks on the vehicles.

The current group of five safety operators – comprising both taxi and private-hire drivers, and driving instructors – underwent 21 days of training with Pony.ai in Guangzhou, China. There, they practised in actual traffic to understand the vehicle’s characteristics and behaviour.

Three more safety operators are undergoing training to join the team.

Getting the AVs ready for deployment in Punggol also involves adapting the vehicles to react to traffic signs and local driving behaviours. This includes teaching the vehicles how to react when encountering small groups of cyclists, which are quite common in the housing estate, Mr Tan said.

He added that the AVs will continue to be fine-tuned using the safety operators’ on-ground feedback. He said that the system is being trained to recognise and react to emergency vehicles.

During ST’s ride, the AV did not seem to react when it encountered an ambulance that sounded its siren. As traffic was quite light, the ambulance was able to quickly overtake the AV by the left lane, rather than the right.

The vehicles used by CDG are the sixth-generation robotaxis Pony.ai has been using in various Chinese cities since 2022. The Toyota petrol-hybrid multi-seaters have a suite of sensors, including LiDAR sensors which help it generate a three-dimensional map of the surroundings using lasers.

In the cabin, a divider separates passengers from the safety operator. Two rear-facing touchscreens show passengers the driving speed, what the car sensors are picking up and real-time updates on the progress of the trip.

When the AV rides are open to the public, it will be possible to book a ride using CDG’s Zig app under the Zig Driverless tab. Passengers will be able to select the pickup and drop-off points on the route, as well as track the shuttle on the route.

Meanwhile, LTA said it has been getting feedback from riders who have taken the AV shuttle rides, to enhance the experience. This includes providing more information about the AV shuttle services and introducing an audio guide about the AV’s key features and route.

To make the ride smoother, speed humps on the way to one of the pickup and drop-off points were repositioned.

LTA said it also plans to put in a new zebra crossing to make it more convenient for people to get to the shuttle service stop at Punggol Coast Mall.