This initiative is expected to be achieved within the next five to ten years.

The self-drive programme is an Uber initiative app supported by Google that allows some passengers to get to their destination in a vehicle that drives itself and had its first public test in the US. of the future of the technology.

In an interview with the GRAPHIC BUSINESS on the sidelines of the press conference held during the week, the General Manager of Uber Sub-Saharan Africa, Mr Alon Lits said, “This is probably the future of mobility for uber where everything would be automated by robotics. Self-drive is at about five to ten years away from penetrating Africa and especially in Ghana since it has the largest demand”.

He stated that most of the benefits of the self-drive are the fact that there would be a huge reduction in road accidents and obviously thousands of lives would be saved.

The programme, he stated would successfully pull through with a more detailed and programmed Global Positioning System (GPS) and navigation service in the country which would be included the app.

The company is therefore committed to getting a detailed navigation service in the country with the already launched UberX service following complaints from riders about their locations not registered on the GPS.

Payment System for Self Drive

Mr Lits said that payment would be done through the app which would be introduced later for cash payment.

He said, “So in terms of payment it would be done through the application. If there is a cash option I guess there would be a mechanism in the app to pay with cash”.

In addition, he stated that the service might explore other payment options to bring ease to its riders.

Will self-drive takeaway human-driven transport?

The General manager said that self-drive in the future will coexist with human driven vehicles and will give riders options to choose from and improve mobility.

“What we see with self-driving in the future is that there would a combination of self-driven vehicles and human-driven transport so it will be that network that would co-exist and it is not about one or the other,” he said.

Citing an example to buttress his point, he stated that if this question is linked to banking and bank branches, automated teller machines were introduced not to make bank branches and tellers absolute but they only made money more accessible to the people.

According to a report from a London-based news agency, Reuters reported that the ride-sharing service rolled out its first fleet of four autonomous vehicles, which came equipped with an Uber driver and an engineer in the front two seats who intervene occasionally.

“The cars have 3-Dimensional cameras, global positioning systems and a detection system that uses lasers to assess objects on the road. The vehicles can stop at red lights, go at green lights, drive over bridges and manoeuvre around other vehicles on their own,” the report added.