WeRide, a leading mainland Chinese self-driving technology developer, has launched Southeast Asia’s first fully driverless bus service in Singapore – operating without a safety officer on board.
The Robobus, equipped with 360-degree vision and capable of detecting obstacles more than 200 metres away, operates on a fixed 1.2km loop every 12 minutes, connecting three hotels and The Galleria shopping mall on Sentosa island, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
The launch followed a year-long trial that began in June 2024, during which the autonomous vehicle transported tens of thousands of passengers with safety operators onboard – without a single accident, the company said.
“All companies intending to deploy autonomous vehicles must first pass relevant assessments related to their autonomous capabilities and demonstrate their ability to operate safely on public roads with safety operators onboard without any incident,” said Lam Wee Shann, deputy chief executive and chief technology officer at the Land Transport Authority, which plans, builds and maintains Singapore’s land transport infrastructure and systems.
Once companies pass the assessments, they can remove the onboard safety operator requirement and replace it with constant remote monitoring instead, he added.
Jennifer Li, the chief financial officer at WeRide, who also heads its international business operations, said that the launch of the driverless bus service proved its technology was “ready to transform public transportation at scale”.
