ZAGREB - For nearly a month, a Croatian company has been rolling out what it says is Europe's first robotaxi service on the streets of Zagreb.
Backed by Uber and powered by Chinese self-driving firm Pony.ai, Croatia's Verne has operated 10 automated vehicles for a select number of customers in the city since April 8.
Despite similar services being available in China and the United States for years, multiple companies are still competing to bring autonomous taxi services to European roads.
Verne's service is intended to be fully autonomous, with a human "operator" temporarily behind the wheel during the current phased rollout, in case intervention is needed.
During AFP's ride with the service, which the company says is used by 300 people, the operator -- a Verne employee named Deni Link -- never had to step in.
The mostly smooth ride was only interrupted when an oncoming vehicle veered into the wrong lane, forcing the car to stop suddenly.
"Sorry, we had to brake," a calm woman's voice told AFP and the other passengers.
Despite the often chaotic Croatian traffic and complicated intersections, Verne's head of country operations, Filip Cindric, said most rides are completed "without any intervention".
According to Cindric, who accompanied AFP during the ride, 90 percent of riders gave the service four or five stars, with no reported collisions over tens of thousands of kilometres.
Although the service was first announced in early April, sightings of the vehicles on Zagreb streets have been rare.
For now, the vehicles operate in the city centre, parts of the south, and around the airport, Verne CEO Marko Pejkovic told AFP.
"Expansion is gradual, with each new zone introduced only after detailed validation and once the system is proven reliable in real-world conditions," Pejkovic said in a statement.
- AFP