London's regulator holds no count of how often a human takes over in the self-driving cars on Uber

Since early September some Uber passengers in London have been driven by software. The cars carry Wayve's AI Driver, and each has a licensed private hire driver in the front seat. Transport for London says that driver "is responsible for the vehicle at all times".

On 7 September this desk ran a piece headlined "Everything Britain knows about how often these cars need a human comes from two journalists on their first ride". We said we had asked TfL, under the Freedom of Information Act, whether it collects that number. TfL replied on 1 October.

Its answer was one line. "We do not hold this information."

We put the same question to the companies. On 7 September we asked Wayve whether it publishes an intervention rate. Its reply on 9 September did not address that question. The same day we asked Uber whether takeovers are logged and whether the count will be published. Uber has not replied; our deadline was 14 September. On 17 September we asked Otto Car, which Wayve says oversees the drivers, whether it holds that record. It sent an automated acknowledgement and nothing since.

What TfL does hold is a set of reporting rules, released to us with parts blacked out. They go further than the standard conditions, which give a private hire operator 48 hours to report a safety incident. For serious incidents, Wayve must phone TfL's control centre within two hours, send a first report within 24 hours and a full report within seven days. Every fortnight it sends a summary of incidents, and every month a report on near misses. Each report says whether the car was in manual mode or Wayve's system was engaged.

First, TfL's document says its severity ratings were "aligned to Wayve's internal definitions" to make reporting easier. The appendix setting out those definitions is blacked out in full, and TfL says it withheld information given to it in confidence. So the line between a two-hour phone call and an entry in a fortnightly summary is drawn using the company's own definitions, and the public cannot read them. We searched Wayve's published material and did not find the scale. We hold TfL's full response and will publish it once TfL posts its own copy.

Second, we asked for any reports received so far, or confirmation that none had arrived. TfL refused both. It cited section 31 of the Act, which protects regulatory work, and said that even confirming whether reports had been sent would harm the "safe space" it keeps with the private hire trade.

So the regulator records whether a person or the machine was driving when something went wrong. It does not hold a count of the moments in between, when the driver takes the wheel and nothing happens. Those moments are the plainest sign of how much of the job the machine can already do. Wayve's rides page says the service will grow only "as the system demonstrates readiness". It does not say how readiness is measured.

TfL's form asks whether each incident was also reported to the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles, the government's self-driving unit. We have asked the Department for Transport, in a public request, whether it holds incident reports or takeover figures.

In August 2022 Wayve told Parliament that the future regulator of self-driving vehicles should be required by law to collect safety data and publish its findings. That was about the full regime under what became the Automated Vehicles Act 2024, not a supervised trial on a private hire licence. It is still the standard the company set.

WHY IT MATTERS HERE

If you book an UberX, Uber Electric or Uber Comfort in Greater London, you may be offered one of these cars. How often a person has to step in, and whether that is falling, is held between Wayve and its regulator, on a scale Wayve helped write.