Ealing is among 19 London boroughs and the City of London where Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car company, will “soon begin” 24-hour trialling of its autonomous vehicles.
Waymo already runs a driverless ride-hailing service in Metro Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, and the US firm says non-commercial trials in London will focus on mapping and safety.
In a statement, Waymo said: “We will soon begin conducting extensive trials of Waymo’s technology as part of our mapping and safety validation work across select boroughs in London, including Barking and Dagenham, Brent, Camden, Ealing, Royal Borough of Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Islington, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham, Redbridge, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth, City of Westminster, and the City of London.”
It added: “We are not yet offering commercial rides, but our testing hours typically run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to ensure our technology can safely handle all of London’s road conditions.”
Waymo also revealed that the London trials will include human safety staff in the vehicle during testing. It says “autonomous specialists” will be onboard to monitor the system and can intervene if needed. The test fleet will use Jaguar Land Rover’s all-electric I-PACE vehicles, which are also used for Waymo’s US operations.
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said: “We’re thrilled to bring the reliability, safety and magic of Waymo to Londoners. Waymo is making roads safer and transportation more accessible where we operate. We’ve demonstrated how to responsibly scale fully autonomous ride-hailing, and we can’t wait to expand the benefits of our technology to the United Kingdom.”
