Steel City Shift: Waymo Now Drives Itself in Pittsburgh With Safety Drivers Still Onboard

Waymo said its vehicles are now driving fully autonomously on Pittsburgh roads with a trained safety technician still in the driver's seat, a step beyond the manual mapping runs that began late last year.

Sam Okonkwo, Robotaxi · Sept. 20, 2026 · 4 min

WPXI

PITTSBURGH - Alphabet's Waymo said its vehicles are now driving fully autonomously on Pittsburgh roads with a trained safety technician still in the driver's seat, a step beyond the manual mapping runs that began late last year.

Euan Guttridge, Waymo's senior director and head of technical programs, told local reporters at the AI Horizons Summit that the company has moved past human-driven data collection. "We are now driving fully autonomously in Pittsburgh with a safety driver behind the wheel," he said, according to WPXI. Waymo gained the necessary PennDOT permits for autonomous testing in February, but a company spokesperson had indicated then that vehicles were still in the manual driving phase.

The near-term work is map and software validation in a downtown core and slightly beyond, Guttridge said. Waymo's usual playbook, which he sketched for local media, is hundreds of thousands of miles of supervised autonomous testing, then trusted testers, then a wider public opening. Commercial robotaxi rides for paying passengers are not yet available. Company officials said they have not received state permission to operate without a person behind the wheel and hope to launch commercial service later, WPXI reported.

Pittsburgh sits deep in autonomous-vehicle history as well as Waymo's own roster. Carnegie Mellon University's Tartan Racing team won DARPA's Urban Challenge, and Waymo has said several alumni from that lineage remain in the industry. The company announced its Pittsburgh push in December 2025, saying it would start manually driving fifth- and sixth-generation Waymo Driver vehicles in the downtown core while working toward a future public launch.

The Sept. 18 confirmation does not put empty-front-seat rides on Pittsburgh streets tomorrow. Pennsylvania rules still require a licensed human driver in the seat during highly automated vehicle testing, according to PennDOT guidance. What changed is the software mode: the Waymo Driver is now doing the driving, with a specialist ready to intervene. That is the same supervised-autonomy bridge Waymo has used in other cities before removing the safety driver and opening paid service.

Sam Okonkwo, Robotaxi. Sam Okonkwo is a senior correspondent covering robotaxis, fleet ops, and paid driverless service. Previously reported transport tech for trade titles; based in Austin.