Dubai is associated with all things shiny. It has a penchant for constructing big buildings and putting big money on display, but lately, it has been trying to embrace the latest trends in technology. Dubai played host to the first drone grand prix, and will also be the host of the robot olympics. The emirate’s ruler now wants Dubai to play a role in the adoption of driverless car technology, he wants self-driving cars to account for 25 percent of all road trips by 2030.

The announcement was made by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, not a lot of details were offered in the announcement, but that’s almost always the case with ambitious plans that Dubai undertakes.

Dubai is already home to a top notch driverless metro rail system which carried 178 million riders just last year, and given the presence of big money in the tiny emirate, naturally you can find some of the best vehicles in the world on the roads in Dubai. It’s going to be a big change to bring driverless cars into the mix.

Mattar al-Tayer, the director-general and chairman of Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority, has said that the agency has got in touch with multiple companies that are making driverless cars and that plans are being developed to conduct live tests.

Filed in Transportation. Read more about . Source: bigstory.ap.org

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