Self-driving taxis have performed a total of 800 trips at the Skolkovo innovations center during the year, with no accidents registered, Kirill Zhanaidarov, Director for Transport at Skolkovo Foundation’s Department for Housing and Utilities, Transport and Urban Improvement, said at a news conference at the Izvestiya newspaper’s office on August 12.
“Since last summer, Skolkovo has conducted trials of the Yandex self-driving taxis, which can be called by clients via the Yandex.Taxi mobile app. During the year, the vehicles have performed 800 rides, without any accident situations. People have got used to these unmanned cars; they are not afraid to use them and even get asleep while enjoying the ride,” Kirill Zhanaidarov noted.
According to Zhanaidarov, self-driving taxis have a future: Skolkovo has a testing ground for conducting self-driving vehicle trials during the first stage, before they can start service.
“Unmanned taxis will allow to reduce ride costs by 20% due to the lack of necessity of paying salaries to drivers, with expenses only for fuel and an operator, who will adjust the vehicle. In the future, development of self-driving public transport will leave many drivers jobless; they can take retraining courses and land a new job of unmanned vehicle operator. A startup has already started operating at Skolkovo that offers such retraining courses to taxi drivers,” Kirill Zhanaidarov concluded.