Buckle up: Waymo's self-driving taxis are coming to Orlando

Self-driving taxis from the Alphabet-owned company Waymo are coming to the streets of Orlando early next year, the company announced in a news release. This will make Orlando one of the first 10 cities in the country to offer the autonomous vehicle service.

“The future of transportation is accelerating, and we are driving it forward with a commitment to quality and safety,” the company stated. “Our rigorous process of continuous iteration, validation, and local engagement ensures that we put communities first as we expand.”

Waymo vehicles, powered by artificial intelligence technology, are fully self-driving, so don’t expect to see a driver or human supervisor behind the steering wheel of one of these suckers. Waymo’s so-called “robotaxis” are already in operation in Atlanta, Austin, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco. As of May, the AI company — owned by Google’s parent company — has provided more than 10 million rides since it launched driverless trips for the public in 2020.

“We’re thrilled that Waymo plans to bring its fully autonomous ride-hailing service to Orlando, and to the tens of millions of visitors we host each year,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a statement, adding that he plans to be “one of the very first” riders. “Waymo will be another exciting transportation option for the region that will enhance the investments we are already making in reducing congestion and increasing road and pedestrian safety,” he said.

According to a city spokesperson, Waymo “has been keeping the city in the loop about their plans” to expand to the City Beautiful, but said that there are no city approvals needed for them to operate.

The company, at the same time, announced plans to expand to Dallas, Houston, Miami and San Antonio in the “coming weeks.” The cost of a Waymo ride can vary based on factors such as distance and duration.

A reporter for Business Insider found that his 12-minute Waymo ride in San Francisco was pricier at $16 than a ride using the same route through Uber and Lyft. However, since no tip to a driver is necessary with Waymo, the cost for an Uber leveled out to be about the same. The trip through Lyft was still a few dollars cheaper — even with a 20 percent tip included.

Is Waymo safe?

Waymo has received criticism elsewhere for risks to public safety and for its potential to undermine publicly owned and operated transit systems (despite incentives Waymo has offered for people to use both).

Labor unions such as the Teamsters and Transport Workers Union, both of which represent professionals in the trucking and transportation industries, have similarly called out Waymo for threatening their members’ jobs.

“New Yorkers be warned, Waymo will turn pedestrians into cannon fodder and will block streets for emergency responders,” said Transport Workers Union president John Samuelsen in a recent statement on Waymo’s expansion to New York City. “Waymo isn’t ready for NYC’s streets and the end goal is to replace rideshare drivers, taxi drivers, and transit workers with robots.”

Waymo, just one of several companies that have rolled out autonomous vehicles, has faced protests from drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft in cities such as in Seattle, where Waymo has also looked to expand.

A Teamsters local in Boston last month joined a labor coalition in support of a city ordinance there that would regulate and study the potential impact of autonomous vehicles. “I regularly transport patients to Boston hospitals, and if robotaxis block us, freeze in place, or don’t know how to yield, they could kill people,” said Abby O’Brien, a Teamster and paramedic for a local ambulance company.

Waymo for its part has pushed back on critical assessments of its safety and its potential impact on the transportation workforce. “Transportation is a team sport, and we believe autonomous vehicles, professional drivers, and the wider ecosystem will thrive together as we increase transportation options for everyone,” Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher told Axios in a statement. Driving and trucking is one of the most common occupations among young men without a college degree, a 2024 analysis from the Pew Research Center found.

As far as safety, Waymo has faced its fair share of concerns — even recalling some 1,200 of its vehicles last year after “minor collisions” — yet has continued to defend the safety and integrity of its software. The company recently released the results of an independent safety audit that determined Waymo’s procedures for determining the safety of their vehicles met industry standards.

A probe by the federal government, launched last May to investigate a “series of minor collisions and unexpected behavior” from Waymo vehicles, concluded this past July with federal safety regulators reportedly opting not to take any further action.

However, as of last month, the company is once again under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over reports that its vehicles may not be complying with traffic safety rules around stopped school buses. A Waymo spokesperson told news service Reuters that they had “already developed and implemented improvements related to stopping for school buses and will land additional software updates in our next software release.”

An independent analysis of federal crash data by the Substack publication Understanding AI found that, from February to August of this year, most of the 41 crashes that reportedly involved Waymo’s robotaxis weren’t the fault of Waymo’s software itself, but rather actions by other drivers or — as The Atlantic put it — “seemingly an act of God.”

Waymo has argued that its robotaxis are actually safer than vehicles with human drivers, stating their “Driver” (unlike actual humans) is “always alert, follows speed limits, promotes seat belt use, and operates some of the safest vehicles on the road.”

Orlando has been working toward eliminating all traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries in the city through its “Vision Zero” plan by 2040. And city officials say they’ve already made progress.

According to a recent news release, Orlando has already seen a 40 percent reduction in “deadly and serious-injury crashes” since 2019. The city credits this progress to, among other things, their red light camera program (which fines drivers who run red lights), the completion of more than 100 “safety projects” along roads citywide, and improving the city’s emergency response through better coordination with Orlando’s police and fire departments.

“Every life lost on our roadways is one too many,” Mayor Dyer said in a recent statement. “By designing safer streets, using technology to improve enforcement and working closely with our first responders and residents, we’re proving that traffic deaths are preventable and that together, we can make Orlando’s streets safe for everyone.”

Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.

Buckle up: Waymo’s self-driving taxis are coming to Orlando

Tags: