Before a new robo-taxi fleet starts operating in a city or region, emergency services must be familiarized with them. How do these vehicles work, which signals from the emergency services do they react to (siren, flashing lights, hand signals), how do you deal with them in an emergency (stopping, accident, driving to the side), how do you ensure that the vehicles do not continue to drive unexpectedly, or how do you contact the operations center and talk to a human?
The fact that they don’t always react as expected after training was shown in a funny video with a Cruise vehicle in San Francisco that was stopped by the police at night because its headlights were switched off.
Zoox now had an appointment with the San Francisco Fire Department, where its own vehicle was presented to the emergency services. This robotaxi differs from those used by Waymo or Cruise in that it is more like a train compartment in which the passengers sit opposite each other and the vehicle can drive off in both directions.
Demonstrations such as these are important not only to familiarize emergency personnel with such vehicles, but also to obtain valuable feedback from them. Feedback can range from the safety of the vehicle itself, access into the vehicle for emergency responders, to how the vehicle responds to instructions from emergency responders.
The fact that Zoox has taken the step of demonstrating the vehicle to first responders is a sign that the vehicles are getting closer to being deployed on public roads in San Francisco. The vehicles are already being tested on public roads in Las Vegas and Foster City (south of San Francisco), and at CES 2024, CES visitors were also able to join an initial waiting list to use the Zoox Robotaxi.
This article was also published in German.
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