Safety guidelines for autonomous mobility and delivery on the Uber platform

Uber’s Vision for Autonomous Mobility & Delivery

Uber’s mission is to rethink how the world gets around for the better, and autonomous vehicles (AVs) are part of that vision. We expect AVs to play an increasing role in Uber’s business over time, as part of a hybrid network where AVs operate alongside regular vehicles. This hybrid network approach has the potential to broaden access to transport and delivery, further improve safety, and open up new possibilities. We’re committed to making sure Uber continues to offer the best mobility and delivery options in a future with AVs.

Our approach is to partner with autonomous vehicle developers, fleet operators, and cities to help connect customers with AV services that:

• Create new opportunities and boost productivity for our customers and partners
• Meet our own high standards for security, privacy, and safety
• Promote fairness and positive environmental outcomes in our communities

Standing Up for Safety

Our partners develop and build the technology needed to power autonomous vehicles with safety as a priority. Uber has also put in place a comprehensive safety program, where we review potential partners’ approaches to safety before they launch and operate on the Uber network across both rides and delivery.

Introducing Uber’s updated safety guidelines for autonomous mobility and delivery on the Uber Platform

At Uber, safety isn’t just a box we tick; it’s a value woven into everything we do. Since launching our Safety Guidelines for Autonomous Mobility Providers three years ago, this framework has guided every automated vehicle operating on our platform, helping ensure consistency, accountability, and public trust as new mobility and delivery technologies have come online. Today, we’re excited to share an evolution of that proven foundation, an update shaped by years of operational experience and the onboarding of new autonomous types. This expanded scope embraces emerging technologies, delivery methods, and safety areas while staying grounded in the principles that already define how we operate safely at scale.

Regulations for automated vehicles are continuing to evolve, and we welcome that progress. Compliance has never been our limit; it’s our starting point. Our guidelines work alongside regulatory frameworks and industry best practices to ensure consistency across partners, technologies, and regions. That’s how we hold ourselves and our partners to a higher standard, grounded not just in policy but in our responsibility to the people and communities we serve.

Getting ready for the next chapter

As AV technology moves forward, our framework needs to keep up too—making things clearer where it counts, taking nuances into account, and expanding into new areas. Together, these updates make an already effective framework even stronger, helping us stay ahead as technology and expectations change.  The Autonomous Mobility & Delivery Safety Guidelines have been updated to reflect: 

• New AI standards
• Advancements in AV industry safety standards
• Food safety for footpath robots
• Delivery drone safety 

Uber’s updated Safety Guidelines for Autonomous Mobility & Delivery Providers reflect three years of real-world AV deployment experience and deeper collaboration with industry standards bodies, including the AVSC, SAE, IEEE, and ISO. The new edition strengthens expectations for how partners demonstrate their safety approach, enhances transparency across testing and validation practices, and introduces expanded guidance for emerging modalities such as airspace delivery. These updates, shaped by evolving technology, regulatory progress, and Uber’s active role in defining best practices, underscore our commitment to safety, accountability, and the responsible growth of autonomous services on the Uber platform.

Safety program for Autonomous Mobility & Delivery

For non-autonomous vehicles, federal regulatory standards govern vehicle design and state and local rules govern vehicle fleet operations. Except for a few locations, regulatory frameworks governing the commercial operations of AVs are still being developed.

While regulations keep changing, Uber can take its own steps to get an understanding of how our potential partners plan to approach AV safety for any operations involving the Uber platform.

As such, the aim of the AM&D Safety Program is to put in place a safety framework that:

• sets out a comprehensive and practical strategy for understanding how potential partners would approach the safety of any operations on the Uber platform,
• creates a consistent assessment process, based on relevant industry safety standards and best practices, 
• establishes the baseline for automated and autonomous robots and vehicles to be deployed and continue operating on the Uber network across mobility and delivery use cases.

The program is organised into three phases: first, planning, then demonstration, and ultimately operation, with clear reporting on safety performance. This program identifies the AV fleet partner obligations that are expected to be met at each step along the way.

Safety Plan Assessment Framework

Although the use of a Safety Plan in Uber’s safety program is consistent across operators, we recognise that partner approaches to safety may vary significantly from one to the next. As a result, the Uber AM&D safety assessment does not prescribe a single safety standard or a singular metric and threshold against which the safety performance of all partners is measured. Rather, the AM&D Safety team aims to assess each partner’s Safety Plan on its own terms, in reference to the particular partner’s planned scope of operations. The safety plan assessment framework is organised into three safety components that complement each other and ensure that Uber is assessing a partner’s comprehensive approach to safety rather than only assessing individual topics such as safety metrics or verification and validation approaches.

Collaboration as the way forward

We know that safety innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s built through collaboration across our cross-functional stakeholders, including AV developers, AV fleet operators, OEMs, regulators, researchers, and users. And that’s what we’re committed to. 

The best place to roll out autonomous vehicles is one built on trust, transparency, and shared responsibility. That’s what we’re building at Uber, every day, with every partner, in every community we serve.

Ultimately, this collaborative work should support the safe commercialisation of AVs by promoting a transparent, consistent, thorough approach to safety across partners on our platform.