Security leads all the things we do at Waymo. This 12 months alone, Waymo has served over 700,000 ride-hailing journeys with public riders and no human driver. We couldn’t have hit that milestone with out placing security entrance and heart, and we’re working onerous to enhance the measurement, transparency, and efficiency of our fleet.

Our complete analysis — throughout greater than twenty security papers that we’ve revealed over time to boost transparency — reveals that the Waymo Driver performs safely throughout a spread of evaluations. Constructing on that work, we’ve revealed two new papers at this time: one that compares the Waymo Driver’s crash charges to human drivers’ over our 7+ million rider-only miles from Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles; and one other that develops clear human crash benchmarks to allow such comparisons.

Our new analysis discovered that Waymo Driver efficiency led to a big discount within the charges of police-reported and injury-causing crashes in comparison with human drivers within the cities the place we function.

“These reviews signify a good-faith effort by Waymo to judge how the security of its autonomous driving system compares with the security of human driving. The outcomes are encouraging and signify one step in our evolving understanding of autonomous driving security,” mentioned David Zuby, chief analysis officer of The Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security (IIHS) after reviewing the papers.

How the Waymo Driver compares to people

There’s no single metric that may present the security of autonomous driving. We use a number of completely different analysis metrics and strategies aiming to get an entire image of security. One in all many metrics that can be utilized to observe the rider-only service after it has launched is the variety of car crashes per mile of driving in comparison with people.

Within the efficiency research, we in contrast the Waymo Driver’s crash charges to human drivers’ on a number of completely different benchmarks. This research is without doubt one of the first to match total crash charges utilizing information from absolutely autonomous operations solely, somewhat than a mixture of absolutely autonomous driving and testing with a human behind the wheel. Not like the latest analysis by Swiss Re that targeted on crashes leading to Waymo’s legal responsibility claims, this research consists of all Waymo crashes, whatever the Waymo car’s function within the crash, and with any quantity of property harm. It additionally makes use of publicly obtainable information, which permits different researchers to duplicate the outcomes.

Waymo’s information was derived from crashes reported below NHTSA’s Standing Basic Order (SGO), over 7.14 million absolutely autonomous miles pushed 24/7 by the tip of October 2023 throughout Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. That information was then in comparison with related human crash charges leading to police reviews, accidents, and/or property harm.

When contemplating all areas collectively, in comparison with the human benchmarks, the Waymo Driver demonstrated:

• An 85% discount or 6.8 instances decrease crash fee involving any damage, from minor to extreme and deadly circumstances (0.41 incidence per million miles for the Waymo Driver vs 2.78 for the human benchmark)
• A 57% discount or 2.3 instances decrease police-reported crash fee (2.1 incidence per million miles for the Waymo Driver vs. 4.85 for the human benchmark)

Which means over the 7.1 million miles Waymo drove, there have been an estimated 17 fewer accidents and 20 fewer police-reported crashes in comparison with if human drivers with the benchmark crash fee would have pushed the identical distance within the areas we function.

When in comparison with crash charges in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, individually, the Waymo Driver considerably outperformed native respective human benchmarks as properly (although the comparability in LA doesn’t but have sufficient mileage to be statistically vital). Notably, native human benchmarks diverse from one metropolis to a different — for instance, San Francisco had the best fee of crashes the place an damage was reported with 5.55 incidents per million miles, which was roughly 3 times increased than the nationwide common.

P.c discount for the Waymo Driver in police-reported and any-injury-reported crashed car charges in comparison with human benchmarks

Normally, the Waymo Driver additionally demonstrated decrease property harm charges in comparison with the human benchmarks. Nonetheless, the benchmark charges themselves diverse significantly relying on the human information supply, even throughout the identical location, so warning ought to be taken when decoding these outcomes.

Producing a sound comparability of human and AV efficiency

Figuring out legitimate and comparable human crash benchmarks is vital for understanding autonomous driving know-how’s efficiency. Regardless of public accessibility of each human and autonomous car (AV) crash information, evaluating the 2 comes with its share of challenges. Our benchmarking paper goals to make sure a good comparability between AV and human driving by addressing the commonest errors and biases and establishing legitimate benchmarks from the cities wherein Waymo operates.

There are two necessary sources of statistical bias to regulate for when evaluating human and autonomous driving. The primary is human crash underreporting. Whereas the info on human crashes that result in accidents or property harm is pretty strong, numerous human low-severity crashes — like hitting some highway particles or minor “fender benders” — will not be reported to police. In distinction, AV corporations report even probably the most minor crashes with the intention to display the trustworthiness of autonomous driving on public roads. For instance, solely 21% of crashes that Waymo has reported to NHTSA so far have resulted in a filed police report, whatever the celebration at fault.

The second is variations in driving situations and/or car traits. Public human crash information consists of all highway sorts, like freeways, the place the Waymo Driver presently solely operates with an autonomous specialist behind the wheel, in addition to varied car sorts from business heavy autos to passenger and bikes.

These variations imply that changes have to be made to human crash information earlier than evaluating it to AV crash charges. Simply as you wouldn’t examine biking in a road-race to mountain biking with out accounting for variations in altitude, terrain, and different elements, comparisons between human and autonomous driving have to account for variations too.
P.c discount for the Waymo Driver in police-reported and any-injury-reported crashed car charges in comparison with human benchmarks

To ensure the human crash information is legitimate and comparable, the damage and property harm benchmarks in our 7.1 million mile research both included underreporting changes for police-reported crashes or had been derived from naturalistic driving research databases, which equip autos with sensors to file driving and usually tend to catch low-severity crashes. The methodology we used was based mostly on finest practices from a literature evaluate of 12 previous research and 1 e book evaluating AV and human crash charges.

At Waymo, we imagine that worldwide standardization for legitimate evaluation of AV crash information is required. We’re searching for alternatives to have interaction the group of visitors security specialists and requirements organizations to advance this work sooner or later.

Our complete strategy to security

Whereas being safer than human drivers in combination is a vital side of AV security, it’s not enough by itself. The evaluation of crash charges is only one amongst many strategies used to judge the Waymo Driver’s efficiency, akin to how a routine well being checkup includes analyzing varied facets of bodily well-being.

Our strategy goes past security metrics alone. Good driving conduct issues, too — driving respectfully round different highway customers in dependable, predictable methods, not inflicting pointless visitors or confusion. We’re working onerous to repeatedly enhance our driving conduct throughout the board.

By means of these research, our purpose is to offer the newest outcomes on our security efficiency to most people, improve transparency within the AV business, and allow the group of researchers, regulators, and teachers finding out AV security to advance the sector.

SOURCE: Waymo