PITTSBURGH Lisa Franklin-Robinson started feeling nostalgic the moment she pulled into the quiet, wooded cul-de-sac in the well-heeled Pittsburgh suburb of Fox Chapel.

The three-story house the 53-year-old Uber driver had pulled in front of was one shed visited for slumber parties as a high schooler. She remembered swimming in the pool and dancing to the jazz her best friends dad would blast over the in-home stereo.

The moment her passenger got into her red Ford Fusion and greeted her with a British accent, Franklin-Robinson realized her friends parents must have moved. She recounted her memories of the house to him, describing its layout and Japanese-style bamboo accents.

Hes looking at me like, How does this little black woman know my house? said Franklin-Robinson, who has spent much of the past two years driving for Uber. And now hes asking me questions about the house, because he hadnt lived there that long.

Her passenger, it turned out, was an Uber employee who had recently joined the ride-hailing giant from fellow tech titan Twitter and relocated to Pittsburgh to work at the companys growing self-driving car program here that could ultimately replace drivers like Franklin-Robinson. She didnt ask him about his work as a product manager at the autonomous vehicle program, but she hoped his experience riding with her left an impression.

I dont know how much my conversation meant or what influence he has on any of this, but that in and of itself should make him see that the personal factor is important, she said.

This is what I think theyre missing with their self-driving cars, she continued. Theres more to transportation than just getting from one place to another.

Uber arrived in the Steel City in 2014 and within a year had poached multiple robotics experts from Carnegie Mellon University to build out one of the most ambitious self-driving car divisions in the world. Uber started test-driving autonomous vehicles on Pittsburghs winding, hilly streets and bridges in May 2016, and has been picking up passengers since September 2016 in an experimental program to work out the technologys kinks in anticipation of eventually deploying it nationally.