US Leads the Way with Fully Autonomous Taxis Operated by App
With just one app, a cab driven by a robot can pick you up and take you around safely and securely. ......Technology that was once the stuff of science fiction novels is now commonplace in other countries. Automotive journalist Kumiko Kato reports on the latest fully automated cabs.
Easy Arrangement with a Single App
In early November, during a nearly three-week stay in Los Angeles for reporting, I learned that the fully autonomous (driverless) taxi service called ‘Waymo’ was available.
The Waymo project began within Google in 2009 and achieved the world’s first fully driverless operation on public roads in the fall of 2015. In December 2016, the project was rebranded as Waymo and became a separate entity under Alphabet, Google’s parent company, dedicated to developing autonomous vehicles.
Waymo had already been operating services similar to regular taxis in San Francisco and Phoenix, Arizona, but on November 12, it finally launched its service in Los Angeles. Currently, the service is available in a roughly 80-square-mile (about 200 km²) area of downtown Los Angeles, equivalent to the combined area of Hachioji and Tachikawa cities.
To use Waymo, you first need to download the ‘Waymo One’ app. Once you input your pickup location and destination, the app will display the estimated arrival time and fare. Like other rideshare services, the fare is dynamic and may increase during times of high demand.
I decided to test it by starting at a shopping facility called Santa Monica Place and setting Venice Beach as my destination. The app’s map clearly shows places where Waymo cannot stop, making it easy to avoid them when setting the destination.
While I’ve seen autonomous taxis running in Las Vegas and San Francisco during test phases, this was, of course, my first time actually riding in one.
