London’s streets are difficult to navigate for even the most savvy of drivers. The city’s medieval layout is a dense maze filled with cars, buses, delivery scooters, bikers and jaywalking pedestrians. There are roundabouts upon roundabouts. Restricted bus lanes emerge and disappear again. On narrow, one-lane streets, drivers travelling in opposite directions intersect and must co-ordinate in an unspoken language to get through.
The failure rate for a driving licence test in London is just over 50 per cent.
Today, a small number of autonomous robotaxis entered the fray, carrying London passengers for the first time. Fifteen cars operated by Uber and British autonomous vehicle start-up Wayve will be available for ride-hailing through Uber’s app as part of a safety testing period. The cars will have a safety driver present to take over, if needed, as government regulators weigh eventually approving wider deployments.
The technology’s arrival in one of the world’s largest cities is an important step for the autonomous vehicle industry. Driverless cars are already common sights in cities such as San Francisco, Beijing and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, but acceptance has been slower in European cities, where the driving environment can be complex and regulation is stiff.
“This is one milestone in a continuing long journey,” Alex Kendall, chief executive of Wayve, said in an interview while riding in the back seat of one of his company’s autonomous vehicles in London.
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Kendall declined to estimate when British regulators would authorise a wider deployment of the technology across London roads, but analysts have said it may not be until 2027 or even 2028.
In the meantime, companies are already preparing for London, one of the world’s largest ride-hailing markets, to be a large battleground for autonomous vehicles. It is pitting American, European and Chinese technology against one another.
Waymo, the service operated by Alphabet, is testing its vehicles in London without passengers. Baidu, the Chinese technology giant, has similar early tests under way with Freenow, a European division of Lyft.
Ordering an autonomous taxi in London will work similarly to hailing an Uber. If one of the testing cars is available when customers make an order, the app will ask if they would like to take a robotaxi for about the same price. If they decline, Uber will send a car with a driver.
On Tuesday, one of Wayve’s Ford Mustang Mach-E cars wound though London, navigating past Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. At each turn, through pedestrian crossings and construction zones, a driver’s hands stayed rested on his lap as the steering wheel moved itself.
Shihao Fu, a senior technology analyst for the market research firm IDTechEx, said regulators were taking a cautious approach because of the safety risks, as well as political considerations. London has more than 120,000 taxi and private for-hire drivers, and “there’s a real question about what large-scale automation could mean for those jobs,” Fu said.
“The politics can definitely affect the speed of deployment even if the technology is ready,” he added.
Uber is pouring more resources into autonomous vehicles even as it cuts costs elsewhere. On Wednesday, the company said it was firing about 3,300 workers, or about 10 per cent of the staff, to reallocate spending. The company plans to have robotaxis in 15 cities globally by the end of the year amid competition with Waymo, Tesla and others.
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Growth of the robotaxi industry risks getting caught up in wider public backlash against artificial intelligence. In New York, governor Kathy Hochul in February dialled back plans to allow robotaxi services outside New York City amid blowback from taxi drivers. Driver groups in London have raised similar concerns.
Phil Farrelly, who drives a black cab that was parked outside Westminster Abbey, said that after his encounters with autonomous vehicles on London roads he was not too worried about his job being automated. To obtain a London black cab licence, drivers must pass a gruelling test known as the Knowledge, which involves essentially memorising more than 100 square miles of city streets.
Two weeks ago, Farrelly said, he turned into a traffic jam near Tower Bridge that started because two autonomous vehicles had come face to face on a one-lane road, neither able to navigate out of it until the safety drivers took over.
“I think it’ll probably work in some bigger cities in the States, but I just can’t see it in London,” he said. He added: “It will be a novelty.”
Andy Burnham, Britain’s prime minister, has not stated a public position on autonomous taxis. Under Keir Starmer, his immediate predecessor, the government was supportive of the industry.
Heidi Alexander, Britain’s transport secretary, called the new robotaxis “a large milestone for the future of transport in London.” Transport for London, a regulatory agency, said it would “closely monitor” robotaxis and “take immediate action if passenger safety is compromised”.
Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s global head of autonomous mobility, said robotaxis could become an important new part of transportation infrastructure. Public acceptance, he said, would hinge on “proving that it’s safe and proving that it’s reliable”.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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