Enjoy ride without driver in car, try next frontier in mobility tele-driving

At a time when car manufacturers are investing big sums to develop driverless vehicles, some may find it an unsafe or inconvenient experience.

For them, tele-driving presents a viable alternative with the same benefits.

In tele-driving, a driver operates a vehicle remotely from a control center that features multiple video feeds.

Drivers don’t need to be where vehicles are

A new study led by a University of Michigan researcher maintains that the main advantage of tele-driving is that drivers do not need to be where the vehicles are. This means drivers can move vehicles from low-demand to high-demand areas without passengers. In this vein, tele-driving can eliminate what ride-hailing services refer to as the ‘wild goose chase’ scenario.

Tele-driving typically involves a driver controlling a car from a workstation with screens displaying video feeds from car cameras, along with sensor data and augmented reality technology, according to the University of Michigan .

Once a passenger has been picked up, transported , and dropped off, the driver can disconnect from that vehicle and is free to connect to any other vehicle that is available in an area of need. Several private tele-driving companies, including Halo.Car and Vay in Las Vegas, are already operational.

“Tele-driving allows you to get away with far fewer drivers than vehicles without impacting the quality of service because you can still leverage the excess vehicles to get quickly to customers,” said Michigan’s Saif Benjaafar , a professor of industrial and operations engineering, who specializes in supply chains and logistics.

“A reduction of 30% to 40% in some of the test cases we considered. There’s an opportunity to significantly increase how busy the drivers are.”

Tele-driving a desk job

Saif stated that one of the challenges for ride services has always been having drivers who are sitting idle. “Quite a bit of that inefficiency can be eliminated.”

Tele-driving will effectively transform driving into a desk job, potentially expanding labor participation. Researchers also note that it shifts vehicle ownership, along with associated costs and risks, to the rideshare company.

Improved safety

Tele-driving can be a safer alternative for women compared to traditional ride-hailing services.

However, researchers caution that tele-driving systems must also address the risk of reckless driving in a work environment that may resemble a video game.

In their study , researchers employed computer modeling incorporating supply, demand, and road congestion data to demonstrate that having more vehicles available than drivers can decrease wait times during peak periods, even with fewer drivers. This is because the likelihood of a driver going on a wild goose chase is reduced.

Using tele-driving, platforms can operate with fewer drivers

Xiaotang Yang, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, stated that this research has practical applications in enhancing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of ride-hailing and similar on-demand transportation services.

“By using tele-driving, platforms can potentially operate with fewer drivers while maintaining or even improving service quality, which can lower operational costs and make these services more accessible. Additionally, this approach can help reduce traffic congestion and waiting times, leading to a better overall experience for users.”

Researchers suggest that tele-driving can serve as a bridge to full autonomy, reintroducing human drivers into the equation until full autonomy becomes a reality, reported Futurity .