Google’s driverless car division Waymo has announced it is expanding its Waymo One ride-hailing service area in Metro Phoenix in Arizona, USA, and growing in San Francisco to connect more communities and serve more riders.
In Metro Phoenix, one the fastest growing cities in the US, it’s doubling the Waymo One service area and connecting downtown and East Valley territories. This expansion will include Scottsdale for the first time, cover nearly all of Tempe and give additional access to Chandler and Mesa. It says “Anyone in the area can hail a ride with the Waymo One app, whether they’re Arizona State University students commuting between campuses or pin-seeking golfers on vacation”.
In a blog post the company writes, “With this expansion, we now serve 180 square miles of The Valley — the largest fully autonomous service area in the world. It’s also nearly four times the size of our initial Waymo One service area when we opened the world’s first true fully autonomous ride-hail service to the public in 2020.
“To serve our growing Phoenix ridership and such a large metro area, we have opened a second location to access Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport at the new 24th Street PHX SkyTrain® Station. We now offer a convenient airport pickup and drop off location no matter where you’re headed in the metro area. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport served more than 44 million passengers last year, or more than 120,000 per day, a significant commercial opportunity for Waymo’s growing operations.
“In San Francisco, we’ll continue onboarding new Waymo One riders and are giving our Trusted Testers access to more of the city, including Fisherman’s Wharf and North Beach. Waymo is the only company to offer fully autonomous rides to members of the public across the vast majority of the city — 24 hours a day. We have welcomed thousands of external San Franciscans to Waymo One since we began offering rider-only trips in late 2022 and have tens of thousands more people on our waitlist as we await our final permit to offer a paid service.”
“Waymo One remains the only and largest 24/7 fully autonomous ride-hailing service in the world — serving thousands of rides in multiple key markets — and we’re scaling quickly,” said Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo Chief Product Officer. “These latest expansions in Metro Phoenix and San Francisco will help us provide more trips to more riders in more places, and are a big step forward on the road to growing our business.”
(Picture – Waymo)
