WAYMO faces more problems: its robotaxis are going where they shouldn't

Robotaxis are increasingly present on the streets of several American cities, especially those operated by the company WAYMO, which have been deployed in several cities to offer their services. But these self-driving taxis are not performing as well as expected. In fact, the company is facing several problems that are hindering its work.

The latest news about how self-driving taxis are performing is that they have trouble driving on motorways. It’s not that they are unable to cope with the complexity of usual traffic on these roads, but rather that they encounter stretches under roadworks and in these cases they don’t know how to react and make serious errors in interpreting signs, which can lead to serious accidents.

Error interpreting roadworks signs

The errors occurred on motorway stretches that were under roadworks. Apparently, the autonomous vehicles did not correctly interpret the signs warning of the existence of roadworks and that those lanes were closed. The robotaxis entered the lanes and drove along them until they stopped due to the presence of other obstacles and signs. An action that caused risky situations and could have led to run-overs of workers, collisions with roadworks elements and other serious problems.

In some cases, the WAYMO robotaxi did not correctly interpret the temporary signs indicating the closure of motorway access. In others, the self-driving system prioritised other road elements, ignoring the temporary signs. Furthermore, on these roadworks stretches there may be signals made by workers, which can go unnoticed by the vehicle.

To solve it, the company has removed the motorway routes for 3,871 units, although they will not be withdrawn completely. These vehicles will continue operating on urban routes, but will not take motorways. On these routes they work correctly and continue to offer their services without problems. Urban journeys are safer, better known and better mapped.

WAYMO has had to make changes to its software so that it learns to behave in situations such as the appearance of school buses, towed vehicles and minor collisions with obstacles on the road, improving the vehicle’s behaviour in these cases. Now, it will have to solve this problem and provide a solution to improve journeys.

Motorways are a fundamental element for the deployment of WAYMO robotaxis, since they allow journey times to be cut and moving along them makes each ride more profitable for the company, so it will not take long to seek an efficient solution.