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Driverless car rental service road-tested in the UK
Kitty Logan in Milton Keynes
Europe;UK
02:36


A British company has begun road trials of a new driverless rental car service, with the hopes of launching a full public service by next year. Customers choosing the Fetch scheme will be able to summon their driverless car on a smartphone app, choosing the vehicle type and pick-up location. 

"Our service allows a car to be dropped to your doorstep," says Koosha Kaveh, co-founder and CEO of Milton Keynes-based company Imperium, which is developing the Fetch app. "You drive it and then no need to even park it. The car disappears by itself after you're done with it."

Many major brands such as Uber, Google and Tesla have also been developing driverless cars. But some of those trials have stalled due to safety issues, including a fatal collision with a pedestrian in the U.S. back in 2028. 

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There are similar safety concerns in the UK, with a recent YouGov poll showing 70 percent of the British public would be wary of driverless cars. But Kaveh says his scheme can navigate those safety concerns by always maintaining human supervision. 

"A human can sit behind a set of controls and remotely drive cars," says Kaveh. "So, we start with that and slowly develop autonomy into our technology, with the goal to get to full self-driving in five years' time." 

Imperium Drive aims to make driverless cars available to customers in 2023./Kitty Logan/CGTN Europe

Imperium Drive aims to make driverless cars available to customers in 2023./Kitty Logan/CGTN Europe

The company also plans to include a back-up driver during the initial launch phase. The vehicle itself is a normal electric passenger car adapted with cameras, antennas, and modems for remote communication.

All this, says Kaveh, also helps improve safety. "Remote driving, with the aid of technology, can be made safer than even normal in-vehicle driving," he says. "And the reason for that is because we still have blind spots in our normal driving. 

"We don't have them in remote driving, because in our technology we have four cameras that cover 360-degree views at all times. And we have computer vision algorithms running on those cameras that are always ready to detect any hazards."

Once the road trials are complete, the next test will be the public response. But Imperium claims it already has a waiting list of eager customers keen to try out this new driverless technology on the streets of Milton Keynes.
 

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