Waymo One, the first driverless autonomous taxi service, is already up and running

Google’s autonomous vehicle division, Waymo, announced earlier this year that it would become a reality, and it has. Its first driverless taxi service, using fully autonomous vehicles, has just come into operation only a few days ago in the areas bordering the city of Phoenix (Arizona, USA).

Under the name Waymo One, Google’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary has taken a major step that is set to change transport and vehicle traffic in all the major cities of the planet as we know them today. What began in late 2009 as a secret project is now a tangible reality in the city of Phoenix with the launch of Waymo One, the first autonomous taxi service.

With more than 16 million kilometres behind it in test drives carried out in more than 25 cities across the states of California, Arizona, Washington, Michigan and Georgia (USA), Waymo’s autonomous vehicles are now officially running with passengers on board on the streets of Phoenix for the first time.

https://youtu.be/Eq89YGbERzs

With a fleet made up of autonomous units of the Chrysler Pacifica (Waymo announced the purchase of a fleet of 60,000 units of the model from FCA before the summer), Google began testing alongside Fiat the launch of the Waymo One commercial service, using a formula very similar to that offered by companies such as Uber, Cabify or Lyft.

For the time being, the Waymo service is limited to an area of 258 square kilometres covering the Phoenix metropolitan area and including cities such as Chandler, Tempe, Mesa and Gilbert. And although all driving tasks in the Chrysler Pacifica vehicles of Waymo One are carried out fully autonomously, to allow a safer use of the service and help ease users’ initial concerns, each of the units in operation has a human driver seated at the wheel, ready to intervene immediately if necessary to avoid situations that could compromise the safety of both passengers and the vehicle.