Waymo’s autonomous vehicles now making their way around Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — Self-driving Waymo vehicles are now on the roads in Pittsburgh, with trained specialists behind the wheel. The company says it’s working with the city and state, as this software is being tested.

Autonomous vehicles, or AVs, were a hot topic at this week’s AI Horizons Summit in Pittsburgh.

“We want innovation and investments to happen here in Pittsburgh and all across this country,” said Johnathan Morrison of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Waymo is now one step closer to offering robotaxi rides in our area as testing continues.

“We are now driving fully autonomously in Pittsburgh with a safety driver behind the wheel,” said Euan Guttridge, senior director & head of technical programs at Waymo.

Local drivers are taking notice.

“I see them, not every day, but almost every day,” said Andy Ramage of Swissvale. “It’s kind of cool, but it’s kind of also dystopian and a little bit scary.”

Guttridge described how the process works: building and testing the map of a downtown region and slightly beyond, initially.

“We go through a series of many hundreds of thousands of miles testing, like that, then we open it up to trusted testers, then we opened it up to the general public,” Guttridge said.

Waymo stressed the importance of continuing to work with regulators on cybersecurity to ensure this ai technology can make our local roadways as safe as they can possibly be.

“There are over 40,000 deaths in the us alone due to road traffic accidents, 1.2 million globally — so there’s an urgency to solve this,” said Guttridge.

Waymo officials say they have not yet received state permission to operate without a person behind the wheel but hope to launch commercial service soon.

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