Fiat Chrysler and Google's Driverless Cars for Public Transport Service

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, in collaboration with Google, will offer the first public transport service using driverless vehicles to American citizens. According to the Associated Press, these two companies, which announced last year that they would design one hundred semi-electric Chrysler minivans for this purpose, now state that the pilot phase of this project has been successfully conducted in three states: Arizona, California, and Michigan. Waymo, the name of Google's driverless car project, has stated that it will allow hundreds of residents in Phoenix, Arizona, to ride in these minivans. Phoenix residents can register for this program by visiting Waymo's website. Google also announced that it will increase the number of these vehicles from one hundred to five hundred. The Waymo project, which started in 2009 at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, near San Francisco, has had smaller-scale public transport experiences. However, Phoenix is the largest city where Waymo will test in a public space, using Chrysler's Pacifica model vehicles. This is not the first project to use driverless cars in public spaces. Since last fall, the passenger transport company Uber has been using driverless cars in Pittsburgh, and the company NuTonomy has been using them in Boston and also in Singapore. In all these cases, a driver is present in the car as a backup. Waymo says it wants to understand how Phoenix residents interact with these vehicles and what type of information or control they desire. The Pacifica vehicle is manufactured in Windsor, Canada, just across the border from Detroit, the automotive capital of the U.S. Then, Waymo's software and hardware, such as receivers and cameras, are added to this vehicle at a technical center in the U.S. Fiat Chrysler's headquarters is located in Auburn Hills, Michigan. John Krafcik, the Waymo project manager, says the collaboration between the two companies helps both sides understand how to bring driverless vehicles to the consumer market and also to realize the safety and benefits of this technology in transportation. According to Krafcik, the initial passengers, such as Phoenix residents, will play an important role in how driverless vehicle technology is introduced to the world in terms of personal car travel or public transport. Driverless vehicles have the potential to soon change all aspects of urban and intercity life and the transportation industry worldwide. Waymo has stated that it does not intend to enter the car manufacturing sector but will collaborate with automotive companies that wish to use this technology.