The world is accelerating into a driverless taxi era — so how will it change our city?

so how will it change our city?

- Chris Stokel-Walker

For many of us, the idea of driverless cars zooming around the capital feels plucked from the pages of a sci-fi novel. And yet, Uber says it’s “ready to go" with self-driving vehicles in this country right now.

The UK is a champion of self-driving technology thanks to London-based Wayve, which has tested its vehicles on the capital’s streets and counts Uber as an investor.

But whether or not driverless cars actually come within the M25 is where things get complicated — in large part due to London's road system. “Wayve is a really interesting company doing really interesting things, and testing in London,” says Dr Jack Stilgoe, an expert in self-driving vehicles at University College London.

“They say London is a particularly hard testing ground for a self-driving vehicle. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

Andy Marchant, a traffic expert at TomTom, says London “presents a far more complex landscape” than the wide streets and city grids of the United States or Middle East.