Driverless car company Waymo makes pit stop at UB

The Jaguar SUV idled in a parking lot between Hayes and Crosby halls.

Motionless? Yes.

But idle? Not in the sense that the vehicle’s more than two dozen exterior cameras, and radar and lidar systems, were closely watching its surroundings. It soon spied roughly 30 people — mostly engineering and transportation planning students — who quickly gathered around the self-driving car.

Stephen Still, professor of practice in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering, explored the car last Thursday with his class.

“What we’re looking at is a means to provide mobility to those that don’t have it,” he said following the class. “Those with the physical ability and enough income to own a car already have mobility. What about older adults, low-income individuals and those with physical or mental disabilities? This technology has the potential to greatly improve their lives.”

Waymo is a self-driving car company and subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, that brought the vehicle to campus. It operates driverless taxis in California and Arizona. For the past month, it has been testing its technology in Buffalo.

Ishtpreet Singh, strategy and operations lead for policy and government affairs at Waymo, told WKBW-TV that the company is operating here “to improve our technology by better understanding the snow, salt on the roads and all those lake-effect kind of conditions.”

In addition to exhibiting the car, Waymo officials gave an in-class presentation to Still’s students.