What Happened: “We've been operating in San Francisco for years now, deliberately scaling our service over time. With tens of thousands of weekly trips, our Waymo One service provides safe, sustainable, and reliable transportation to locals and visitors to the city alike. Now it's available to anyone,” Waymo said in a statement.
San Francisco has now joined Phoenix, Arizona, as the only other city where Waymo One rides are available to everyone.
Until recently, Waymo One rides were only available to those who signed up to ride with the company and joined its waitlist. The company was adding new riders to the service incrementally. However, it has now scrapped the waitlist altogether, after over a quarter of the city’s population signed up to ride with it.
Interested riders can now simply download the Waymo One app and take a ride across the city.
Why It Matters: However, safety concerns continue to plague autonomous vehicle operators including Waymo.
Waymo fixed the issue with a software update to improve its reaction to pole-like objects and "robust" mapping updates and improvements.
In May, NHTSA commenced a probe into Waymo vehicles following reports of unexpected driving behaviors. These reports included collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects such as gates and chains, as well as collisions with other parked vehicles. Some instances also pertain to the driving system disobeying traffic rules.
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