Waymo's Driverless Taxi Service Opened To All In San Francisco

(RTTNews) - Waymo LLC, the autonomous driving unit of tech major Alphabet Inc., has opened Waymo One, a driverless taxi service, to all in San Francisco.

Till Tuesday, customers interested in taking a ride in Waymo One driverless car needed to sign up for a waitlist, which could take weeks or months to open up. In total, nearly 300,000 people in San Francisco have signed up to ride with Waymo since the firm first opened a waitlist.

Waymo One, which has been operating in the Californian city for years now, provides safe, sustainable, and reliable transportation to locals and visitors, 24/7, across the city with tens of thousands of weekly trips.

Now, the customers interested in a full autonomy ride, can download the Waymo One app on the App Store and Google Play for an immediate ride.

In a bolg post, the company noted that about 30 percent of Waymo rides in San Francisco are to local businesses. Additionally, 36 percent riders used Waymo to connect to other forms of transit.

Waymo's fleet is all-electric and sources 100 percent renewable energy from the City's CleanPowerSF program. Waymo's rides, since the beginning of commercial operations in August 2023, have helped curb carbon emissions by an estimated 570,000 kg, contributing to California's ride hail emissions goals.

As per Waymo's recent rider survey, 53 percent of San Francisco users feel that Waymo has helped them be more environmentally friendly. In addition, for more than half of Waymo riders in SF, riding with Waymo has improved their sense of personal safety when getting around.

Waymo, which took its first rides in Palo Alto in 2009, now holds over 15 years of experience in safe and convenient autonomous driving, offering more than 20 million rider-only miles and nearly 2 million paid rider-only public trips.