• Autonomous streetsweeping vehicles appear on Singapore streets.
• Level 4 automation licences mean no drivers behind the wheel.
• WeRide’s stock market listing will drive investment and expansion.

The promise of the big headlines in the technology world is that breakthroughs and their ongoing development will, in time, mean that we humans have to work less, and can play more.

Autonomous transport is one of those developments that’s been slow in coming as a widespread game-changer, at least outside specific urban areas. Most people would consider the act of driving a vehicle in rush hour traffic as work, and definitely could be something that tech might take over from reluctant commuters. But tales of un-piloted cars and trucks crashing and generally malfunctioning are usually well-reported, and can be enough to make the general public wary of the technology. Perhaps the tendency to focus on the black marks on a technology’s name is uncalled-for – or perhaps not.

But there are certainly uses for autonomous vehicles that make very good sense, outside the obvious driverless taxis, removing the drudgery of the daily commute, and self-driving parcel delivery trucks. In Singapore, for instance, visitors may catch a glimpse of so-called robobuses, and more recently, those wandering the streets close to the Marina Coastal Drive and Esplanade might spot street-sweeping vehicles that seem to have no one behind the wheel.

The Robosweeper S6 and S1 are the epitome of technology deployed to do the work that few others want to – keeping the streets clean and free of litter. Additionally, their presence will, no doubt, go a long way to further Singapore’s reputation for being technologically forward-thinking.

The street-cleaning vehicles are part of a project run by WeRide and environmental service company, Chye Thiam Maintenance. As detailed in a press release from WeRide, the driverless vehicles represent “Singapore’s first commercialized autonomous sanitation project,” which sounds like management-speak, despite WeRide referring to itself as a (publicly-listed) “Robotaxi company.” It’s probably safe to assume that internally, at least, WeRide refers to commercialised autonomous sanitation vehicles by the tradename Robosweeper.

Autonomous vehicles under licence

The vehicles received the go-ahead after WeRide were granted M1 and T1 licences for the vehicles from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore, licences which allow autonomous vehicles to operate on public roads (M1) and pedestrian paths (T1).

The LTA approved the trial operation of the driverless cleaning vehicles just a week before the sweepers made their public debut on the streets of the city state, and WeRide claim the process of conception, development, licensing, and real-world deployment took less than six months from start to finish.

WeRide specialises in autonomous transport systems that operate at Levels 2, 3, and 4, categorisations which describe the degree of automatic control wielded by the onboard and/or remote technologies. Level 2 is ‘partial driving automation,’ (keeping a car in a motorway lane, for example), Level 3 is ‘conditional automation,’ which relies on a driver being able to take over in the event of system failure, and Level 4 being ‘high automation,’ in which the driver, if there is one, can kick back and watch the world go by (or, on occasion, watch as the world hurtles through the windscreen). Level 4 is the category Robosweepers and Robotaxis fall into, one that also applies to Waymo’s driverless cars operating currently in four cities in the US.

WeRide’s public listing on Nasdaq brought investment into the company (including from Uber which intends to include WeRide’s Robotaxis in its fleets), and the company has plans for projects in France and the UAE.