Autonomous vehicles have been allowed on US roads since 2020

You order a taxi via an app, sit in the back seat, and off you go. Then comes the eternal question of whether to chat with the taxi driver. In Los Angeles, Atlanta, other US and Chinese cities, however, the driver’s seat may already be empty. This futuristic experience, where you watch with excitement as the steering wheel turns by itself and the car safely reaches its destination, is currently only available in specific areas of a few major cities.

The first regular robotaxi service was launched in 2020 by Waymo, a company affiliated with Google. Today, it operates in ten American cities (including Dallas, Miami, and San Francisco). It is probably the greatest adventure you can experience in regular traffic with self-driving cars. The scientific community rates it as level four (high automation).

Almost everyone has a partially automated car today. Experts distinguish between six levels: at level 0, the system only warns you of danger; level 1 is met by various assistants such as adaptive cruise control or parking assistance. At level 2, the assistants complement each other, typically maintaining speed while controlling the car to keep it in its lane. This is an available standard today; the situation is more interesting at level 3, where the driver does not have to focus on driving but must still be ready to take over. At level 4, there is no one sitting in the driver’s seat, but the car will not drive itself in dangerous weather, for example. At the last level, it can handle all conditions, which is a goal that has not yet been achieved.

Cars see using radar, ultrasound, cameras—and above all LIDAR

Vehicles are packed with a range of technologies. LIDAR technology, which emits invisible laser beams into the surrounding area and calculates the distance from other objects, is key to the operation of autonomous cars (the same system is used by your mobile phone when taking photos, allowing it to better separate the figures in the photo from the background). American company Tesla has decided to take a slightly different approach, relying solely on cameras and obstacle recognition from video, which is a technically simpler and cheaper solution. Elon Musk also claims that this simulates the way humans drive cars. However, LIDAR has the advantage of being able to assess danger even in low visibility conditions.

Autonomous vehicles can therefore make mistakes, just as professional drivers do in emergency situations. The advent of driverless cars will be gradual, but we already know that similar measures are needed for their operation in cities to make streets safer today. This includes greater care for vulnerable road users such as cyclists and pedestrians, modifying crossings, and reducing speed—which has the greatest effect on the risk of accidents and the severity of their consequences.

The vehicle carries a lot of data with it, based on an accident database and detailed maps. However, problems arise when information about roadworks or detours is not entered into the systems. Society is very sensitive to accidents involving autonomous vehicles. For example, a single collision with a pedestrian resulted in the revocation of the license for California-based Cruise. Tesla, however, claims that its Full Self-Driving program is seven times safer than when the same car is driven by a human. The topic of vehicle safety at this car manufacturer was also included in the program of the One World documentary film festival.

Some curious situations can also be caused by pranksters. On 1 October 2025, 50 people simultaneously ordered a robotaxi to the same dead-end street in San Francisco. Experts compare the situation to DDoS attacks, where a large number of robots log on to a website and cause it to crash. The cars got stuck in the street and the company had to suspend services for several hours. Passengers are monitored by cameras directly in the vehicles and remote telephone support is available. Level 4 autonomous vehicles, where the driver does not sit behind the wheel, are also an integral part of corporate fleets and cannot be purchased by individuals as private vehicles at this time.

Autonomous cars have been driving in the Czech Republic since January

We are now encountering limited forms of automation in the Czech Republic as well. Czech law currently only allows L3 automation, and systems in Europe are only approved for roads with separate lanes (typically highways) where there are no pedestrians or cyclists. Even in a smart car, therefore, a large part of the tasks will still be up to the driver: for example, you have to drive out of the garage yourself, and it won’t help you on most trips around town. The vehicle itself recognizes when conditions are suitable and the driver is no longer needed, and offers to take full control of the steering. However, even though you don’t have to hold the steering wheel on your way to Brno, it is still forbidden to use your phone, for example. The Tesla system, which can even drive through narrow streets for the driver, is currently only available in some non-European countries.

Fully autonomous operation in European cities will likely take several more years. Cities on the old continent have a much more complex network of streets, which are often shared by pedestrians, cyclists, and trams. Autonomous cars will probably first revolutionize the taxi driver job market. However, they take up the same amount of space as a vehicle with a driver, so they will also be limited by the capacity of city roads. It will be interesting to see how autonomous vehicles are integrated into on-demand transport in less densely populated areas. The service is already operating in trial locations in the Prague Integrated Transport system, but it is limited by problems such as finding enough drivers.

Rails offer more certainty, with subways having operated autonomously for over 43 years

The greatest limitation of autonomous vehicles is unpredictable situations. It is therefore easier to automate urban lines that are separated from other traffic. They run on precisely defined routes, often underground or on bridges, and do not have to avoid other cars. The first such line began operating in Lille in 1983, and the one to London’s docks from 1987 is also well known. Gradually, the automation of urban railways became standard. Today, they can be found all over the world. In Prague, it is planned for the construction of metro line D and is also being prepared for line C.

Attempts to automate conventional trains are more complicated, as they have to avoid each other at stations, drivers sometimes enter level crossings when they shouldn’t, and wild boars run out of the woods. Here, the Czechs are working on a project that is unique in a global context. The AŽD Praha company has purchased two local lines on which trains no longer run—the Švestková rail line in the Ústí nad Labem Region and the line from Kopidlno to Dolní Bousov near Český ráj. It is testing the reaction of trains to people on the tracks and monitoring the tracks using drones. The company has also resumed service for regular passengers and transports tourists in autonomous trains. But don’t worry, you won’t be picked up by a completely empty train at a small station. The train driver is still present in the carriage.

A separate issue is the transport of goods. Last year, robots began delivering food around Thámova Street in Karlín, while autonomous vehicles transporting tons of building materials are used in construction work. However, Motol Hospital has also been relying on intelligent vehicles since 1995, where they can take advantage of the fact that they mainly move around the third basement of the hospital. In addition, there are 36 elevators on the premises, which the carts call themselves.

Autonomous transport is therefore not a distant sci-fi future, but a technology that we already encounter in practice today. While roads are slowing down its advent, automation has been working reliably for years on railways and in enclosed areas. The driverless future will not arrive all at once, but it has long been getting underway in stages.