First in Europe unmanned taxi appeared in Tatarstan

UFA, 29 August 2018. /Bashinform News Agency, Rozaliya Valeeva/ translated by Tatiana Aksyutina/. The Government of Tatarstan and the Yandex company signed an agreement on the development of unmanned vehicles. A test zone for the unmanned car movement is launched in Innopolis, "Tatar-Inform" reports.

Innopolis was the first city in Europe to use unmanned vehicles for daily trips. Now in the fleet, there are two unmanned taxis and five pick-up and drop-off points, which include the key sights of the city: the university, the stadium, the medical center, the residential quarter and the Popov Technopark. The service will work daily.

The adult city residents who agreed to participate in the testing can take advantage of an unmanned taxi. 100 people have already stated their intention to do it. Test runs of unmanned taxis are free.

The unmanned vehicles observe the rules of the road, yield to pedestrians, travel around obstacles and can apply emergency braking. But so far they are controlled by a Yandex test engineer, who is in the passenger seat.

Yandex began working on unmanned vehicle control technology in late 2016. In February 2018, the Yandex unmanned vehicle for the first time drove along the streets of Moscow after a snowfall, in May it took for ride 700 visitors of Yet Another Conference, and in June traveled 789 kilometers from Moscow to Kazan.