Out of the box Autonomous buses
I expect that autonomous, i.e. self driving, buses will appear on the roads before self driving cars. These buses run on fixed routes, unlike cars that are expected to drive to on demand destinations. 

It is also possible to set the autonomous buses to run on a safe speed, to avoid causing serious accidents.

The planners in Singapore probably have the same view. I recall that they are now working on getting the autonomous buses to run on the road.

The autonomous buses have to overcome two challenges:

a) Technical challenge. Apart from autonomous driving from one stop to another, it has to be able to sense if there are passengers who wish to board and alight the bus, and also that they tap their fare card to pay the fare.

b) Economic challenge. How to minimize the loss of employment of the drivers that previously drive the buses.

Let me deal with the economic challenge first. This is perhaps not a serious issue as most of our drivers are foreigners on term contracts. Their contracts can expire without renewal. The number of local drivers that will be thrown out of employment is probably not large.

I will now address the technical challenge. It is perhaps easier to install sensors on the buses to ensure that all the passengers have alighted and boarded the buses before they move off. This is probably the same arrangement that is used in the driverless trains on some of our MRT lines.

Checking that the passengers have tapped their fare cards may be more difficult. Perhaps it can be addressed by installing CCTV on the buses and have artificial intelligence to check that the fare cards have been tapped.

I like to propose an "out of the box" solution to the technical challenge. I will employ a conductor, perhaps an elderly person, to be on the bus to oversee the alighting, boarding and the payment of the fare. The conductor will press a button to get the bus moving.

You may question the rationale of replacing a driver with a conductor. If this is the case, what is the rationale of self driving?

Here is my answer. It is less taxing to be a conductor that a driver. We can let the self driving mechanism take care of the heavy demand of driving from a human. It can lead to a smoother and safer ride.

The conductor can be an elderly person, who probably can accept a lower wage than a driver, who is younger and has a family to support. The training of a conductor is easier. It may be possible to have conductors work on short shifts of four hours. 

It is a good way of creating employment for the elderly people, and also to reduce the operating cost to a certain extent. The conductors receive a lower pay than drivers. Needless to say, the conductors can and should be locals.

A human, doing the job of a conductor, can overcome the technical challenges of overseeing the movement of the bus after passengers have alighted and boarded and checking that the fares have been paid. The conductor can also provide guidance and assistance to passengers who need to know about the route and the stops to alight.

I hope that this concept of having a conductor can help to get our autonomous buses into operation earlier. 

Tan Kin Lian

Vote - do you like this "out of the box" approach?

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