Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is preparing a high-resolution digital map system (GPS) for the emirate of Dubai to support autonomous vehicles, predicting that the switch to this type of intelligent driving will reduce traffic accidents by 90%.
Khalid Al Awadhi, Director of the Transportation Systems Department at the Public Transport Authority at the Authority, told Emirates Today on the sidelines of the launch of the Dubai Autonomous Mobility Conference, that the new digital map system will enable self-driving transportation to know the streets of Dubai in a detailed way. Car users reach their destination in record time.
Al-Awadhi added that the digital map system will be launched in 2023, after its completion in 2022.
He said that the safety and security axis is one of the pillars of Dubai's strategy of intelligent mobility, as previous statistics indicate that self-driving cars will reduce the number of traffic accidents by 90%, because most of the causes of accidents revolve around human errors, which is limited by intelligent self-driving systems.
He said that the first stages of the project include placing a human driver inside the self-driving vehicle, to intervene if required, pointing out that it will be phased out in the later stages.
He pointed out that the Dubai strategy aims to make 25% of the trips through various means of transport in Dubai, to be limited to self-driving transport, by 2030.
Al Awadhi said that since the launch of the strategy in 2016, the Authority started working on the preparation of laws and legislation that govern and regulate self-driving in the Emirate of Dubai, and then prepare for the stages of gradual transformation to achieve the target, pointing out that the 25% will be distributed so that Dubai Metro 10%, and 9% For the vehicles of individuals, with the rest of the proportion of different means of transport by land and sea.
He said that self-driving techniques will not be limited to electric cars, but will include all types of cars, while the future aims of the Authority to focus on electric cars, to support Dubai's strategy to move towards a green economy.
The General Manager and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Authority, Mattar Al Tayer, announced the launch of the second session of the Dubai World Challenge for autonomous mobility. The focus of the next session will be "self-driving logistics."
Al Tayer said that the second edition of the Dubai World Challenge for self-driving mobility is the focus of 'self-driving logistics' as part of the Authority's efforts to support the logistics sector in Dubai. Studies show that there are approximately 6,000 shipping companies in Dubai and more than 64,000 trucks from Dubai. The various loads and weights, which entails the presence of about 306 thousand trips a day, which constitutes about 13% of the number of trips in the Emirate daily.
Ahmed Hashem Behroozian, Executive Director of the Public Transport Corporation (PTC) and Chairman of the Smart and Sustainable Vehicles Committee, said that global studies have shown that 60% of the world's population is willing and able to use autonomous vehicles.
90%
The expected decline in car accidents after the shift to self-driving