There will be no human safety operator behind the wheel for the general public between downtown Phoenix and Sky Harbor International Airport. The company said it will be doubling its service area in downtown Phoenix after an initial launch of driverless rides in the area.
The developments come a month after Waymo first began offering itsrobotaxi service to the airport, or rather an airport shuttle stop at the 44th Street Sky Train station, for trusted testers who have signed non-disclosure agreements.
"This is the only service of its kind in the world carrying passengers from a busy airport, all the way to a downtown fully autonomously during the holiday season," said Saswat Panigrahi, chief product officer at Waymo. People don't have to do anything else. There's no waiting time. There was no non-disclosure agreement. From the airport to the city.
The core downtown area of San Francisco is limited to Waymo employees and their guests, and members of the public are not allowed to use the service. The image is from the company, Waymo.
All of San Francisco is now fully autonomously driven by the company. Anyone with the app can get a ride for free. The core downtown area is not open to the public.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles recently granted a permit for the company to begin charging for its services, but it still needs a separate permit from the California Public Utilities Commission before it can ask riders to pay. In order to catch up to competitor Cruise, which has been charging for rides at night since June, Waymo applied for that permit this week.
The strategies of the two companies seem to be diverging as the year ends. By the end of this year, Cruise plans to launch in Austin and Phoenix, as well as other major U.S. cities in the coming years. The company seems to be focused on hitting new uses in existing markets.
“If our goal was to stamp out three more cities, we could technically do that now,” said Panigrahi, noting Waymo has the technical capacity, at least, to successfully deploy its self-driving system branded the Waymo Driverin new cities. The operational capabilities are not yet there, though.He said that the markets were in and that they are now two serious ride-sharing markets. It's more important to us that we are in Phoenix and San Francisco so that we can serve more types of riders.
Panigrahi said that by simply expanding its surface area in existing cities, it can hit new businesses and residences, as well as create more stickiness with existing customers who might have previously used.
This is the reason why operating 24 hours a day has been an important marker for the company.
The service area in downtown Phoenix has been doubled by the company.
With a new airport service, there will be problems with demand and wait times, so expect some growing pains. Panigrahi said that the company has hundreds of vehicles there to work with, and that it has practiced moving supply to more in-demand locations.
He said that the pool of hundreds of vehicles gave them enough flexibility to be able to increase the number of fully self driving vehicles at times of demand.
The company will still have to make decisions as to where to send vehicles, which customers it makes wait and which it helps get to a location on, even though it won't have to deal with ride-hail drivers who cancel a fare because it's going somewhere inconvenient. Panigrahi said multiple factors will play into that decision, such as which rider is closest, how much the ride will cost, and so on.
Panigrahi said that he expects costs for arobotaxi to be comparable to other ride hailing options.
There are incidents on the road. In both cases, the vehicles stopped in the middle of the road and had strange interactions with law enforcement. It could mean trouble for the company if that happens when a rider is on their way to the airport
Panigrahi said he hopes those events will be rare, but when they do happen, it is because the vehicle is not trying an unfamiliar task. A "life support agent" will reach out to the rider in the car and help them through the stop. The vehicle will approach the fleet response to ask for help.
Panigrahi said that this is not someone remotely driving the vehicle.
The response might help the vehicle make a decision on how to proceed. There will be a team that will disengage the car if not.
It is not clear how long that would take. Roadside assistance is usually available within a few minutes if needed. A customer who is trying to get to a flight on time is stuck in a non-responsive audiovisual device.
The rider assistance team will try to get the rider to their destination on time if the vehicle stops.
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