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The UK plans to bring a small number of driverless taxis to British streets next year, as the country tries to catch up with the US and China in adopting autonomous vehicles.
Heidi Alexander, UK transport secretary, said on Tuesday that commercial trials of fully driverless taxi services will begin next spring, a year earlier than planned.
These trials will offer most Britons their first experience of self-driving cars.
Alexander claimed the autonomous vehicle industry could create 38,000 new jobs and add £42bn to the UK economy by 2035.
“The future of transport is arriving,” she said. “Self-driving cars could bring jobs, investment and the opportunity for the UK to be among the world leaders in new technology.”
One government official said the priority of the trials was to ensure cutting-edge innovation, regulation and road safety.
The previous Conservative government had aimed to roll out autonomous cars by 2026, but because of delays caused by the change in administration, this is now expected in the second half of 2027.
The Labour government’s new scheme will allow small numbers of so-called “robotaxis” and bus-like services to start serving customers much sooner on a pilot basis, without a safety driver being needed behind the wheel.
The UK Automated Vehicles Act, which was approved by legislators in May last year, established a framework to put self-driving cars on the road, but it is subject to local authority consent and compliance with safety requirements.
A statutory instrument will allow driverless taxis to be rolled out in limited locations.
Industry executives have been calling for a fast-track system for pilot programmes so that the UK would not fall further behind in the global race to unleash autonomous vehicles.
Uber, the US ride-hailing company, and Wayve, a London-based autonomous technology business, said they would partner to operate one of the first fully driverless taxi services in the UK capital, launching as soon as next year.
“This is a defining moment for UK autonomy,” said Alex Kendall, chief executive and co-founder of Wayve.
Uber already works with more than a dozen autonomous tech companies around the world but London would be its biggest market for driverless taxis outside the US.
“Our vision is to make autonomy a safe and reliable option for riders everywhere, and this trial in London brings that future closer to reality,” Andrew Macdonald, president and chief operating officer at Uber, said.
Rollout of Uber and Wayve’s fleet depends on regulatory approval from the UK government and Transport for London, the capital’s transport authority, so the exact timing and number of any launch vehicles is yet to be determined.
The UK and continental Europe are lagging far behind the US and China in deploying driverless cars, which advocates claim could improve road safety and revolutionise transportation.
Driverless taxis operated by Waymo have become a familiar sight in San Francisco and several other parts of the US.
The Alphabet-owned business now operates more than 250,000 paid trips every week.
Meanwhile, Tesla is planning to launch commercial autonomous ride-hailing services in Austin, Texas, as soon as this month.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk criticised Europe as being “a layer cake of regulations of bureaucracy, which really needs to be addressed” when asked in January about the release timing of the company’s “full self-driving” technology on the continent.
In China, autonomous driving systems are proliferating fast, with regulators struggling to keep up.
Chinese tech companies such as Pony.ai and Baidu are testing robotaxis in autonomous driving pilot zones in about 20 Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
