  This paper examines the safety performance of the Waymo Driver, an SAE level
4 automated driving system (ADS) used in a rider-only (RO) ride-hailing
application without a human driver, either in the vehicle or remotely. ADS
crash data was derived from NHTSA's Standing General Order (SGO) reporting over
7.14 million RO miles through the end of October 2023 in Phoenix, AZ, San
Francisco, CA, and Los Angeles, CA. When considering all locations together,
the any-injury-reported crashed vehicle rate was 0.41 incidents per million
miles (IPMM) for the ADS vs 2.80 IPMM for the human benchmark, an 85% reduction
or a human crash rate that is 6.7 times higher than the ADS rate.
Police-reported crashed vehicle rates for all locations together were 2.1 IPMM
for the ADS vs. 4.68 IPMM for the human benchmark, a 55% reduction or a human
crash rate that was 2.2 times higher than the ADS rate. Police-reported and
any-injury-reported crashed vehicle rate reductions for the ADS were
statistically significant when compared in San Francisco and Phoenix, as well
as combined across all locations. The any property damage or injury comparison
had statistically significant decrease in 3 comparisons, but also
non-significant results in 3 other benchmarks. Given imprecision in the
benchmark estimate and multiple potential sources of underreporting biasing the
benchmarks, caution should be taken when interpreting the results of the any
property damage or injury comparison. Together, these crash-rate results should
be interpreted as a directional and continuous confidence growth indicator,
together with other methodologies, in a safety case approach.
