'Robotaxis' to hit London streets next year - but cabbies call them a 'fairground ride'
Waymo will bring its autonomous taxi service to Europe for the first time when it releases its cars onto the UK capital's streets in 2026
Driverless taxis are set to be rolled out in London from next year after a US manufacturer announced plans to launch its services there.
Listen to this article
Waymo will bring its autonomous taxi service to Europe for the first time when it releases its cars onto the UK capital's streets in 2026.
The autonomous vehicle company's technology is already being used in San Francisco and four other US cities.
Read more: Tube drivers offered £80,000 new pay deal as TfL bids to avoid further strikes
These 'robotaxis' will compete for customers against London’s famous black cabs, which have been serving Londoners since the Tudor era.
A representative of the capital’s cab drivers questioned the reliability of the driverless vehicles, labelling the new arrivals as a “fairground ride”.
But despite the criticism, Waymo's cars are currently on their way to London and will start operating in the coming weeks with “trained human specialists”, or safety drivers, behind the wheel.
If this is successful, the company hopes to scale up operations and obtain permits from Transport for London and the Department for Transport to offer fully autonomous rides in 2026.
Uber and and the UK tech company Wayve are also planning to dip into the driverless taxi market, with vehicle trials planned by both next year.
This surge in interest comes after the Government said it would accelerate rules allowing public trials to take place before legislation enabling self-driving vehicles passes in full.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: "I’m delighted that Waymo intends to bring their services to London next year, under our proposed piloting scheme.
"Boosting the AV (autonomous vehicle) sector will increase accessible transport options alongside bringing jobs, investment and opportunities to the UK. Cutting-edge investment like this will help us deliver our mission to be world leaders in new technology and spearhead national renewal."
A fuller rollout of self-driving taxis is expected in the UK after the Automated Vehicles Act fully takes effect in late 2027.
But the news has not been welcomed by Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association, which represents black cab drivers.
"It’s a tourist attraction in San Francisco. Quite frequently one of them will lock up in the middle of a junction because it gets confused and the police have to come and park, wait for the Waymo man to get his laptop out and get it going again," he said.
The black cabbie representative believed London's irregular road system and would pose a big challenge for Waymo.
He added that he did not believe there was public appetite for the technology.
"If there was demand for it, Nigel Farage would be saying get rid of immigrants, have driverless cars instead. But there’s no demand for it," he said.
Waymo, part of the Alphabet group that also owns Google, is also launching services in Tokyo using Jaguar Land Rover electric vehicles.
It launched autonomous taxis in 2020 and has amassed a fleet of more than 2,000 driverless vehicles.
Since then, it has taken more than 10 million passengers in the US, offering services in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Atlanta.
Critics say people will be unsafe in these vehicles, but Waymo say data show that cars driven by humans are involved in incidents that injure pedestrians 12 times more often than its autonomous vehicles.
To ensure safety, their vehicles use cameras, artificial intelligence, radar and lidar – sensors that use lasers to measure distance in three dimensions – to create a map of objects around the vehicle, even in darkness and weather conditions such as rain.