There isn’t anything on removing bus drivers at the moment.

Bus drivers need to be recruited and trained, which can take six months to a year, Mr Siow said. There is also a need to buy buses and build depots and interchanges.

“All of us want… more bus services, more frequent buses. But behind every bus, there are two, two and a half, maybe more bus drivers, and it’s just very difficult to get,” he added.

The authorities had also considered minibus services, but the maths did not work out when a driver was added to the equation, Mr Siow said.

It seems the autonomous bus will be mini buses and routes will change depending on the requirements

deploying smaller-capacity driverless vehicles “fairly extensively” on fixed routes within HDB estates.

These routes can be changed as needed, with self-driving minibuses and shuttles taking people to transport nodes during peak hours, and then places such as polyclinics or community centres during off-peak times.