Waymo and Cruise Reimagine Public Autonomous Transport

Robotaxis are gaining traction as a modern and accessible mode of public transportation in select cities worldwide.

According to IDTechEx’s latest report, 'Autonomous Vehicles Market 2025-2045: Robotaxis, Autonomous Cars, Sensors', testing of autonomous vehicles is expanding globally, with China leading in commercial deployment. The report delves into the readiness of key players, vehicle safety evaluations and the challenges facing the autonomous vehicle market.

California’s autonomous vehicle testing data, analyzed by IDTechEx, highlights the advancements in autonomous driving technology. In 2023, registered autonomous vehicles collectively logged nine million miles across the state.

Leading the charge in this space is Waymo, which has submitted half of all recorded miles to date, followed by Cruise, which contributed 30% before its recent shutdown.

MPD: A key performance metric

Miles per Disengagement (MPD) measures how far an autonomous vehicle can travel before requiring a safety driver’s intervention. Interventions occur when a vehicle fails to properly navigate or identify road obstacles. The industry-wide MPD metric has seen exponential growth, now reaching hundreds of thousands of miles—distances that would take human drivers decades to achieve.

Although not all disengagements lead to collisions, robotaxis remain vulnerable to crashes, whether or not a safety driver is present. Comparing robotaxis to human drivers is challenging, especially when defining an “acceptable” collision rate for autonomous vehicles. Advanced human driver benchmarks may provide a useful standard, but factors like road rage and aggressive driving, unique to humans, complicate direct comparisons.

In the US, the average human driver is involved in a collision roughly every 200,000 miles—a figure that doubles in busier cities. IDTechEx reports that top robotaxi companies (excluding Cruise) averaged 86,000 miles per disengagement in 2023.

By 2025, robotaxis are expected to surpass human drivers in performance. Waymo’s data already suggests its autonomous vehicles are safer, with 84% fewer airbag deployments and 73% fewer injury-causing crashes over 22 million miles than human-driven cars.

Waymo: Leading the robotaxi revolution

Waymo, the top player in the US robotaxi market, has consistently demonstrated its commitment to innovation. The company’s journey began with the Early Rider program in Phoenix, which allowed participants to test the service. By 2020, the program had evolved into a full-scale commercial service.

By 2022, Waymo will offer rides from Phoenix’s airport to the city centre, marking a significant milestone in autonomous public transport. The company’s operations have since expanded to Los Angeles, with further growth in Phoenix and San Francisco. Waymo currently plans to launch services in Atlanta and Austin by 2025.

Waymo conducts 150,000 paid trips weekly, covering more than one million miles of fully-autonomous driving. IDTechEx predicts that this figure will rise as robotaxi adoption accelerates.

Global deployment of robotaxis

China has emerged as a global leader in robotaxi operations, with commercial services running in six cities and testing underway in two more.

The US follows closely, with commercial deployments in three states and testing in more than 20 cities. Europe and Asia are also advancing their robotaxi programmes, with Germany expecting commercial deployment in 2025 and Japan in 2026.

France, Germany, the UK and Japan are extensively testing robotaxis, signalling the growing global interest in this transformative technology.

The road ahead

While widespread deployment is still on the horizon, robotaxi companies are progressing at various paces.

Some remain in early testing phases, while others have achieved commercial deployment in single or multiple locations.

As the industry continues to innovate, the combination of cutting-edge technology, rigorous safety testing and growing public acceptance is paving the way for robotaxis to redefine public transport and shape the future of urban mobility.

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