About 15 protesters at Wayve's London office call for robotaxi trials to stop

About 15 people protested outside Wayve's King's Cross office in London on Saturday, Oct 17, calling for the city's robotaxi trials to stop, the BBC reported. The App Drivers and Couriers Union (ADCU) organised the day of action, which ran from 11am to 1pm.

Behind the protest is a fight over who issues permits. Under current rules the Department for Transport would issue permits for fully driverless passenger services, and TfL could only grant or refuse consent, without regulating how the vehicles are used on London's streets. A London Assembly transport committee report this week asked for TfL to be able to issue and withdraw permits, impose conditions on operators and cap vehicle numbers once full regulations take effect in 2027. The committee said it had not heard enough evidence to be convinced that London should welcome driverless cars.

Drivers would carry the legal risk while the system drives

The ADCU is asking for an enforceable just transition plan for drivers, full disclosure of safety incidents, interventions and near misses, and clear accountability when an autonomous vehicle is in a collision. The union says Wayve and TfL have confirmed that the licensed private hire driver remains legally responsible even when the system is driving. It calls that unacceptable because the driver carries the risk for technology they do not control.

Abdurzak Hadi, the ADCU's London chair and a private hire driver, said he was "worried that I'll be forced to compete with a machine that can work 24 hours" and called on TfL to suspend licences for driverless vehicles until there is greater clarity. He said the union held a similar protest at Waymo's Park Royal base in August. James Rossi, a GMB representative and London bus driver, wants guarantees on safety and job security and says companies developing the technology should help pay to retrain workers who lose their jobs. "We're not here to stop artificial intelligence," he said. Priyanka Khurana of the campaign group Fare Free London said driverless taxis would add traffic and take drivers' jobs.

Wayve said it was taking a "deliberately phased approach" with its partner Uber, learning from supervised operations and working with TfL so future services fit the Mayor's Transport Strategy, and that automated passenger services could "make a positive contribution to London's transport system". A TfL spokesperson said: "Safety is our top priority and any automated passenger service in London can only operate with TfL's consent."

A small protest against a long waitlist

More than 100,000 people are on Uber's London waitlist after the first UK services started in September, The Guardian reported. Those services, run by Uber with Wayve, keep a human safety driver in the front seat, and Waymo is also trialling on London's roads. Driverless car trials expanded to Manchester in the week of Oct 12.

City Hall is concerned about more than 100,000 licensed drivers losing income, and a spokesperson for Mayor Sadiq Khan said he shared "concerns about potential impacts on safety, congestion and jobs". A Centre for British Progress report said more than 400,000 UK drivers would soon find "much of this work obsolete".

The committee also wants operators to report crashes and near misses within 24 hours, and TfL to publish data on "empty miles", the distance driverless taxis travel without passengers. Its chair, Caroline Russell, called London's streets "famously old, idiosyncratic and crowded". In a YouGov survey of 1,053 Londoners commissioned by the committee, 42% opposed driverless vehicles and 29% supported them, while 29% said they would be likely to use one.