Self-driving buses aren’t just a dream or a sci-fi concept anymore.
It’s really happening in Singapore.
In Sentosa, people can now ride on driverless shuttle buses that can be called with an app on your phone.
People working and living in Punggol, Tengah and the Jurong Innovation District will also be able to ride on self-driving buses and shuttles for their first- and last-commutes.
And if that’s not enough, LTA is going to be testing self-driving vehicles in the west of Singapore.
Now, while most of us are terrified at the idea of placing our lives in an invisible driver, another group of individuals are terrified for another reason.
Losing their jobs.
Singapore has more than 10k bus drivers. And if buses do not need drivers anymore, all of them are going to lose their jobs, right?
Nope.
First thing first, let’s clarify this:
Driverless Buses Doesn’t Mean No Drivers
At least not to LTA.
According to them, all autonomous vehicles must continue to have a qualified safety driver at the wheel.
He or she needs to be at the wheel to “take over immediate control of the vehicle should the need arise”.
If they see that the bus is about to hit someone or something, they can take over to prevent any accident.
And LTA is Planning To Upskill The Drivers
Senior Minister of State for Transport, Mr Janil Puthucheary said that LTA has “inked a memorandum of understanding” with these eight industry stakeholders:
- National Transport Workers’ Union
- ST Engineering
- SBS Transit
- SMRT Buses
- Tower Transit Singapore
- Go-Ahead Singapore
- Workforce Singapore
- NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute
Their agreement? To upskill the drivers and prepare them for new roles when their current ones go obsolete.
What Are The Roles Available
The current roles the drivers can be prepared for is to be a safety operator or to work in the control centre.
But if you’re a bus driver and you’re not interested in any of the two roles, don’t worry.
The autonomous vehicle industry is just starting and depending on how things develop, more roles might be needed to cope with the operations of the industry.
At the current moment, LTA is coming up with a training curriculum and said that about 100 bus drivers will be selected based on driving experience and records.
If there’s one takeaway from this article, it’s this: lifelong learning isn’t something “good to have” anymore. It’s an “essential skill for survival”.
After all, every job can be rendered obsolete in a matter of months, judging by how scarily fast technology is advancing today.
Here, you can watch this video on a few jobs that have been taken over partially by AI:
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