Dubai Plans a Taxi That Skips the Driver, and the Roads<br />14, 2017<br />FEB. 14, 2017<br />Like a scene from "The Jetsons," commuters in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, may soon climb aboard automated flying taxis, soaring over busy streets<br />and past the desert city’s gleaming skyscrapers, all — quite literally — at the push of a button.<br />Mattar Al Tayer said that is not just a model but it has really flown in Du<br />In October, the city signed a deal with the Los Angeles-based Hyperloop One to study the potential for a hyperloop — a vacuum-like tube<br />through which vehicle pods hurtle at speeds faster than airliners — between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates capital.<br />Passenger drones, capable of carrying a single rider<br />and a small suitcase, will begin buzzing above the emirate as early as July, according to the director of the city’s transportation authority, part of an ambitious plan to increase driverless technology.<br />The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced last year<br />that 25 percent of all journeys in the city would be conducted by driverless vehicles by 2030.<br />The craft can carry a 220-pound passenger, according to a promotional video produced by the Roads<br />and Transport Authority, which depicts a man boarding the vessel, buckling into a race car-style harness and tapping his destination on a touch screen before taking off.
