More than a hundred thousand Londoners already await 'robotaxis'

LondonLondon has taken another step in the global race for the implementation of autonomous driving. The authority that regulates traffic in the city (TfL, Transport for London) has this week granted Uber and the British technology company Wayve the first licenses for them to offer commercial driverless rides on the streets of the British capital.

The service will begin operating "before the end of summer," says Uber. Initially, however, each vehicle will have a so-called "safety driver" at the wheel, ready to intervene in case the system makes a mistake. This is the first step to overcome before the two companies can ask the British government for the necessary permit for the vehicles to circulate without any human as the last safety link. Ideally, they want it to be in 2027.

Wayve began testing its software in 2018, always in an experimental phase. Now, for the first time, users will pay to use these vehicles, which are not, properly speaking, the popular London taxis ("black cabs"), but the so-called minicabs". Uber and Wayve have reported that more than 100,000 Londoners have already signed up for the app's waiting list to be guinea pigs as soon as the tests are over.

For now, TfL has authorized fifteen vehicles – the model is a Ford Mustang Mach-E – which incorporate the artificial intelligence system developed by Wayve, along with 360-degree cameras, radars, and other sensors that continuously monitor the environment.

TfL guarantees that it has only granted the licenses after the vehicles met the required safety standards and has warned that it will closely monitor the commercial tests. The London authority recalls that any new technology will have to align with the Vision Zero objective, which aims to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries in London by 2041. Last year, 96 people died and 3,900 were seriously injured as a result of traffic accidents.

Is the taxi driver profession over, then, at least in London? Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, doubts it. "Anyone who has seen these cars driving [in tests] around central London will have seen that, very often, the driver has to intervene. At certain intersections and complicated situations, the driver takes control. We have observed it personally, and it happens every time," he says.

He adds, furthermore, that robotaxis,as they are popularly called, "are a solution to a problem we don't have." And he gives as an example what happens in the United States. "One of the reasons why the mayor of New York has removed them from the streets is what is called deadheading: when they drop off a passenger, if they don't have another service assigned, they continue circulating aimlessly through the streets, very slowly and very cautiously. And it causes more congestion and more pollution.

McNamara, however, was mistaken in the statement he made this Thursday on the program Today on BBC 4. It was not Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York, who withdrew the robotaxi license, but the state governor, Kathy Hochul, who withdrew the plan to allow commercial services in the smaller cities of the state. In the Big Apple, the project is moving forward.

Battle between tech companies

Transport for London's authorization arrives amid a global race for robotaxis. Uber has opted to partner with specialized companies. In London, it has done so with Wayve, while in other markets it works with different partners, such as the Chinese company WeRide, which already operates autonomous services in Abu Dhabi.

But the competition is just beginning. Waymo – Google's subsidiary specializing in autonomous driving, which is the one operating tests in New York and is already commercially operating in San Francisco, Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, or Phoenix – plans to begin its own commercial tests in London also during September. For its part, Apollo Go, the robotaxi service of Chinese giant Baidu, is also on the waiting list in the British capital. In the coming months, London will become one of the first major cities in the world where American and Chinese technologies will compete directly in the same regulatory environment. And it is here that two radically different ways of understanding autonomous driving emerge.

Waymo bases its system on high-definition maps prepared in advance. Each street has been scanned with millimeter precision before the vehicle drives on it. This approach offers enormous accuracy, but it requires constant updating of the mapping in the face of any change caused by works, diversions, or urban modifications.

Wayve, the London-based company, defends the exact opposite philosophy. Its artificial intelligence dispenses with HD maps and learns to drive by observing the world, similar to a person. The company defines this model as embodied AI, an artificial intelligence capable of interpreting new situations without having seen them before. This capability, known as zero-shot driving, is considered one of the sector's major bets because it would facilitate the deployment of the technology in any city without the need for prior mapping.