Driverless Uber rides begin in London

Driverless Uber rides in London begin later this summer for a selected group of riders, after Transport for London granted Private Hire Vehicle licences to Wayve’s autonomous cars.

TfL confirmed the licences on Wednesday (5 August), covering a number of Wayve’s all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles fitted with the company’s AI Driver, surround cameras and radar. Inspectors checked the cars against TfL’s policy and safety standards before signing them off.

The decision means the operator, the driver and the vehicle now all hold licences with the same authority, which is the requirement for any private hire trip in the capital.

Rides will run under Uber’s TfL private hire operator licence and the government’s AV Trialling Code of Practice. The vehicles do the driving, but a trained, TfL-licensed private hire driver sits on board for every journey to oversee the trip, offer support and take over at the wheel if needed.

More than 100,000 Londoners have joined Uber’s Interest List in the past eight weeks, signing up for the chance to be matched with a Wayve ride at launch. Uber will give a selection of those riders access to trips later this summer and collect their feedback before the full public launch.

The two companies have not set a date for wider availability.

“This licence is an important step towards giving Londoners the chance to experience autonomous driving technology,” said Sarah Gates, VP of global affairs and assurance at Wayve.

“The responsible deployment of these vehicles will bring us safer, cleaner and quieter streets, and we’re proud to continue working alongside regulators, communities, and the public as we take the next steps towards making autonomous rides a reality in the capital.”

“This licence is a key milestone in bringing autonomous rides to London on Uber,” said Annie Duvnjak, global head of autonomous mobility operations at Uber. “Our interest list has seen an incredible response from Londoners who are excited to experience Wayve’s British-built autonomous driving technology.”

Wayve has tested its technology on London roads since 2018 and has run it in more than 500 cities worldwide.

Its approach, which it calls AV2.0, drops the HD maps, hand-coded rules and fixed geographic zones that older driverless systems depend on. The AI Driver instead learns from experience in the way a human driver does, which the company says lets it adapt to unfamiliar roads, vehicles, weather and cities.

Uber works with more than 30 autonomous vehicle partners and completes millions of driverless trips a year, running human drivers and autonomous vehicles on the same network.

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