If you''re out late at night along Taipei''s Xinyi Road next week, you might see moving buses with no one behind the wheel. Driverless buses will be running on the bus lane at night for a trial period of five days. It''s part of the Taipei City government''s plan to develop ''smart city'' technologies. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je takes one of the first test rides in this driverless bus, which will run on the streets of Taipei for a trial period of five days from August 1.Ko Wen-jeTaipei MayorAt first it’ll be tested at night, from 11pm to 5am. So if you see a driverless bus running on the bus lane on Xinyi Road, don’t be alarmed. The last time I went to Tesla’s headquarters in the USA, they let me try a driverless vehicle on a motorway. I asked how many of the technical components in the vehicle were made in Taiwan. The answer was more than half. That means Taiwan’s already got a good foundation in the development of driverless vehicles.Nonetheless, because driverless vehicles are not covered by national laws, the bus can’t yet be formally licensed. It can only run on closed circuits. There’s still a way for it to go before it can operate normally.Ko Wen-jeTaipei MayorActually there have been crashes involving driverless cars in the US. But statistically they’re safer than cars driven by people. The law should adapt as quickly as possible when confronted with the appearance of new technologies. So we’re going to first give it a test run. It won’t be in real operation yet. Before that, we must amend the necessary laws as soon as we can. Everything has to wait for regulations from the central government, before which nothing should happen.The city government hopes to use driverless buses to make up for shortages in the bus networks of major streets, and as shuttle buses on the grounds of science parks.

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