Autonomous vehicles rolled into Philly this summer, raising new questions about how robot taxis might share the city’s streets.
You may have seen Waymo vehicles driving around Center City for the last two months, clearly marked and topped with futuristic-looking sensors. These cars were being driven by people gathering data about Philly’s roads and the driving environment, with no guarantee that Waymo will launch a fleet of vehicles here.
“Philly is crazy. Crazy things are going to happen to those cars.”
Suzanne Sheer, Philadelphia resident
Already, though, there’s a cultural hurdle. As resident Matt Dimarco put it, the biggest challenge for integrating Waymo into Philly would be getting Philadelphians to accept it as part of the city. After all, Philadelphians destroyed the HitchBOT, a hitchhiking robot that successfully traversed other cities, in 2015.
Philadelphians also told Technical.ly they’d rather give their money to a human gig worker over a robot — but they’re still open to self-driving rideshare if the price is right.
“So many people are employed by Uber and Lyft, and I know that it’s really helpful for people to be able to choose their hours of working,” Suzanne Sheer told Technical.ly at Love Park. “Any robot taking over human jobs is freaky and scary.”
Trust and jobs are top priorities
While people like Sheer see the benefits of Waymo, such as preventing people from driving drunk or helping those who can’t drive, rideshare services offer the same benefits.
People also tend to trust other people more than robots. Zhara Hunter finds the autonomous vehicles scary because you can’t know what’s going to go wrong with the technology, she said. She trusts human drivers more and would rather support their business.
Waymo Driver on a Jaguar (Courtesy)
Waymo’s selling point to some residents is its novelty. Multiple people we spoke to, including Mijuel Johnson, said they would ride in one for the experience, though not all the time.
“I would stick more so with the taxis, Ubers and Lyfts,” Johnson said. “I would focus more on making sure that those people still had their jobs.”
In cities where Waymo already operates, residents report similar reactions. Ryan Tran was visiting Philly for a few days from Atlanta, one of the five cities where Waymo currently operates a fleet of vehicles.
He sees them all the time, but only personally knows one person who has ridden in one, Tran said. While he’s generally pro autonomous vehicles, he doesn’t like that they distract from public transportation or take business from Uber and Lyft drivers.
Waymo did not respond to Technical.ly’s request for comment about its tests in Philly.
The cheapest option is still the first choice
For many people, choosing which rideshare option they’d prefer comes down to cost.
Tran, the Atlanta resident, said the decision whether to ride in a Waymo would depend on how much it costs compared to the other rideshare options.
Waymo’s pricing depends on the location and distance of the ride, just like with Uber and Lyft, but a report from this summer found that Waymo rides were consistently more expensive than the other rideshare services, despite lower labor costs.
Self-driving cars also lack a personal touch. Dimarco said he wants to see their money going to real people, not just the company, even if those rideshare companies have entered legal settlements in the past for underpaying the gig workers.
Uber and Lyft drivers are paid with tips and a percentage of the ride fare, which varies depending on location, time of day and length of the ride. Both companies consider the drivers that use their platforms as independent contractors or self-employed workers who don’t usually get benefits or a salary from the company.
Taxi drivers’ earnings depend on the rules of the company they work with. Some companies take a percentage of the fare drivers earn, while others lease the actual taxis to the drivers, impacting how much money the drivers get to keep.
Humans are dangerous, too
Aside from how Waymo’s vehicles may impact other rideshare drivers’ businesses, Philadelphians also had concerns about the safety of the vehicles and how they would integrate into the city.
Dimarco’s main safety concern would be for pedestrians and cyclists on the road, as opposed to other cars. The rate of car crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists declined significantly during the pandemic, but has slowly been creeping up over the last few years.
“I’m sure that the technology is there to relatively safely navigate the streets. Deep down inside, I don’t see an increase in accidents,” Dimarco said. “I’m sure that human error is as common as machine error.”
Waymo provides safety data about its operations on its website, although Dimarco said he would probably trust the information more if it came from a third-party source instead.
During its first month in Atlanta, Waymo cars caused zero at-fault accidents, mostly just sparking some confusion on the road. In other places, though, they’ve been the target of vandalism, including instances in Los Angeles when the cars were set on fire.
“I often describe people crossing the street like they want to fight the cars that are driving,” Dimarco said. “So I’m wondering if they’ll be accepting of an autonomous vehicle.”
In at least one neighborhood, however, Philadelphians have already accepted similar bots. The city already has an autonomous shuttle that runs in the Navy Yard, which debuted last winter. The main difference is that the Navy Yard shuttle runs on a closed loop route and has an operator in case of emergencies.
Waymo vehicles would be running on any and all streets in the city, though, and the roads in certain neighborhoods can be confusing. It’s easy for humans to make those mistakes, so it doesn’t seem unlikely that Waymo could also cause an accident, according to Sheer.
“Philly is crazy,” Sheer said. “Crazy things are going to happen to those cars.”