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An Uber autonomous vehicle testing in early 2018. Photo by AP

How Uber Wants Self-Driving Cars to Help Ride-Hailing Business

Photo: An Uber autonomous vehicle testing in early 2018. Photo by AP

Uber is among the robotaxi developers that have been trying to improve the way they measure software quality, to help prepare for the launch of commercial services. The company recently discussed tracking precisely where cars with its software appear to drive better than human drivers and where they won’t. Uber would then assign “confidence scores” for different areas of a city where its prototypes are operating, indicating how well they’re expected to do in those areas, according to a document viewed by The Information. (See related article here.)

If Uber went ahead, the data would then be compared with information about ride volume from Uber’s ride-hailing business so that Uber knows where its self-driving cars stand the most chance of helping the business.

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