In the US city of Phoenix, more people should be able to call self-driving taxis. This helps especially in the corona crisis to protect drivers and guests.
The Google sister company Waymo is making fully automated journeys in its robotaxis in the US city of Phoenix accessible to more users. In the near future, in the corona crisis, only cars without a safety driver at the wheel are to carry passengers, as Waymo announced on Thursday. Such journeys were previously only accessible to a small number of users and, according to Waymo, accounted for five to ten percent of the total traffic volume.
Now all registered users of the Waymo One Robotaxi service should be able to order vehicles without a safety driver. In the coming weeks, new customers should also be added via the app. The journeys are monitored by radio link. The installation of partitions between the front and rear seats in the Waymo vehicles is to be completed later this year. Then you will be able to serve a larger area with the robotic taxis.
In Waymo, Google’s robot car program was absorbed – and the company is considered particularly advanced in the development of systems for autonomous driving. In addition to its own Robotaxi service, Waymo would also like to provide car manufacturers with their technology.
At the beginning of March, Waymo also introduced the Via freight service, which is supposed to transport goods with self-propelled articulated lorries and delivery trucks.
