Paris has put a public authority inside the robotaxi consortium. In England the authority already has a say, and six weeks to use it

On 23 October 2026 the Métropole du Grand Paris, Bolt and Stellantis presented the Greater Paris Autonomous Driving Living Lab, a consortium to run autonomous vehicles across the Paris metropolitan area. Testing would begin in 2028 in up to five municipalities to the north-west, with a second phase studying extension to around thirty more and commercial operation targeted for 2030. All of it subject to permits.

Who does what

The Métropole du Grand Paris coordinates the project with the municipalities, identifies suitable routes and oversees the evaluation. Stellantis supplies vehicles built on its “L4-Ready” platforms. Bolt, through its subsidiary Bolt Autonomous Driving Solutions, leads the integration of the service and its deployment.

The driving technology is not assigned. Pony.ai is named as a potential supplier and is not confirmed. The partners did not name the municipalities, the fleet size or the investment.

Nor did they name the party that will run the cars day to day: buy them, insure them, clean them, charge them, send them for repair. Of the three signatories, none does that today.

The part worth an operator’s attention

Notice where the public authority is standing. It is not outside the arrangement granting permission. It is inside it, coordinating with the municipalities and helping decide which routes get served and in what order.

That is a different posture from the one this trade is used to, and it is worth holding next to what Parliament has already written here.

In England the say exists, and it expires

The Automated Vehicles Act 2024 creates a permit for automated passenger services. Section 83 disapplies taxi, private hire and bus legislation where a permit holder runs one. Section 85 then adds the condition that is usually left out of the summaries.

Headed “Consent requirement for services resembling taxis or private hire vehicles”, it says the permit may not be granted “without the consent of each licensing authority in whose area the service may be provided under the proposed permit”.

So the licensing authority has a say. Now read how long it lasts. The relevant period is “six weeks beginning with the day on which the request is made”. If within that time the authority fails to give or refuse consent, consent is deemed given. If it refuses but fails to put its reasons in writing, consent is deemed given as well.

A say that disappears when nobody answers the post is still a say. It is not a strong one, and six weeks is not long in a licensing office.

The two arrangements are not the same mechanism and should not be described as one. In Paris the authority is a commercial partner. In England it is a statutory consultee holding a veto with a clock on it. What they share is the direction: the question of which places get an autonomous service is being settled between platforms and authorities.

London, meanwhile

Pony.ai and Uber said in October that testing would begin in London in the coming weeks; it had not begun at the time of that reporting. The separate Uber and Wayve service in London runs with a safety driver in every car.

In none of these arrangements is the firm that will keep the cars on the road the same firm that holds the booking.

What is actually being decided

Not the 2028 date, which is distant and conditional. The structure, which is settled and waits for no approval.

The same four roles recur: somebody builds the cars, somebody supplies the autonomy, somebody keeps them running, and somebody holds the booking. The fourth needs no depot and no workshop. In Paris it went to the only signatory that owns none of what moves.

The third role, keeping the cars running, is the one that cannot be bought as a subscription. It is also the one Paris has not yet filled. Whoever fills it will either arrive with a relationship to the passenger or arrive without one, and that is decided long before the first vehicle.

From here on this is about what we sell, so read it as that.

What we do

UrbanGo is the software an operator uses to take jobs, assign them, record them and keep its own customer list, telephone jobs included. We do not run transport, we do not open operating centres and we have no passengers of our own.

The records stay with the operator and export at any time, in a format any other system can read, at no charge and without asking permission. That is what the contract says.

Paris has left the operator’s seat empty. It is worth whoever takes it arriving with their own customers already written down.