The vehicles of the robot taxi company Waymo have been released onto the highway

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The license is subject to conditions, but it’s still a giant leap in self-driving technology. Waymo can start testing the robot taxi solution on the highways of a large American city, Phoenix, but for the transports, it must first ensure that there will be at least one control person in the cars, who will intervene in the driving as a driver if necessary. Although self-driving cars are currently only available outside of peak hours, this could soon change and the service could be extended to 24 hours.

Crossing the boundary between city streets and highways can be a huge milestone for robot taxi services, because in this respect they have been at a serious disadvantage compared to companies working with traditional solutions, such as Uber. The latter’s human drivers can drive wherever and whenever they want, which seemed like an insurmountable advantage for Waymo or any similar robot taxi company. Or at least it seemed so.

Introducing a motorway service can make journeys more efficient and encourage more people to use the service. According to Waymo, adding freeways on certain routes can reduce the travel time of its rides by 50 percent. “The ability to use highways will be especially important as we expand our operations to other cities,” Waymo points out in its blog post. “Waymo Driver obeys the posted speed limit, but can also react to dynamic situations, such as reducing its speed due to construction or changing its speed to safely make a lane change,” they added, speaking to The Robot Report.

Waymo operates its ride-hailing service in 225 square kilometers in Phoenix, but only uses surface roads. At the same time, the company has gradually increased the testing carried out on highways over the past year. San Francisco, for example, already has a robot taxi service, recently launched a robot taxi route in Los Angeles, and hopes to launch the full service there soon.

“Before we expand, we make sure we have a comprehensive understanding of the intended environment and the capabilities of our system. Waymo’s years of experience on highways with cars and trucks has taught us how to autonomously navigate everyday scenarios, and it informs our approach to safely responding to rare events. We are constantly iterating and improving our technology and operations through a rigorous process that combines structured testing, simulation and public road operations,” explains Waymo.

János Gábor, Okosipar.hu