This marks the first public trial of the company’s driverless car programme, as it starts to accept applications from hundreds of families. It has equipped a fleet of 500 minivans in anticipation of the popular take up.
Using an app, passengers can call up a car at any time of day and each vehicle will still have a human safety driver behind the wheel who is able total control of the vehicle in the event of a problem or a risk of collision, as in accordance with Arizona’s laws governing autonomous vehicles.
The test zone forms part of the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, and it is approximately twice the size of San Francisco where Waymo has already been conducting trials of its driverless vehicles.
In preparation for this large-scale trial, the first of its kind on this scale, they have been conducting smaller-sized tests of its riding service in Phoenix for the past month.
A trial of this size will allow the company to collect a vast amount of data to assist their development of this technology, from information such as where people want their driverless cars to go to what controls and information they want to see on the inside of such a vehicle.
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