Waymo expands autonomous ride-hailing service between Sky Harbor, East Valley
Phoenix Business Journal
Waymo is expanding its autonomous ride-hailing service in the Phoenix metro area, boosting its connection between downtown Phoenix and the East Valley.
The company, a subsidiary of Google owner Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL), on Thursday launched its Waymo One service expansion, which will include Scottsdale, nearly all of Tempe and additional access in Chandler and Mesa.
“Experience Scottsdale is excited that our visitors and residents alike will soon have a new option in Waymo as they move throughout Old Town Scottsdale’s shopping, entertainment, historic and arts districts, as well as travel to and from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport,” Stephanie Pressler, director of community and government affairs at Experience Scottsdale, said in a statement.
With the expansion, Waymo will cover 180 square miles in the Valley. The company also announced it’s expanding service in San Francisco.
“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,” Saswat Panigrahi, Waymo’s chief product officer, said in a statement.
New drop-off point at Sky Harbor
To meet rising demand for service, Waymo is increasing the number of its existing autonomous vehicles that will operate in the Valley, Panigrahi said on a media call announcing the company’s expansion on Wednesday.
In addition to its service expansion in the Valley, the company is adding a second pickup and drop-off location at the PHX Sky Train Station on 24th Street to accommodate more passengers at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
Waymo One is currently providing more than 10,000 trips a week to riders in the Valley and San Francisco, not including employee trips, according to the company.
“With this latest expansion, we intend for those numbers to accelerate rapidly to 10 times that scale by next summer,” the company said in its announcement. “More than 150 million people use ride-hail services in the U.S., and with Phoenix and San Francisco as two of the most lucrative and fastest-growing markets, Waymo One is well positioned for continued growth as we commercialize our technology.”
The company is continuing to refine its Waymo Driver autonomous technology across its fleet. With the expansion, it released key software updates to improve service reliability and driving performance in inclement weather, Panigrahi said.
“We also now allow up to four passengers in our vehicles, delivering more flexibility for our riders and improving the everyday usefulness of our service,” Panigrahi added.
Waymo does not anticipate adding new employees to support its service expansion in the Valley, a company spokesperson said in an email.
Earlier this year, Waymo cut 8% of its workforce, equating to more than 200 employees, in two rounds of layoffs as it sought to reduce costs.
Waymo’s service expansion comes after it expanded rider-only service at Sky Harbor in December. A month prior, it began offering rides at the airport with company specialists in the driver’s seat of its Jaguar I-PACE electric cars.
Waymo is focusing on growing ridership and increasing capacity in the Valley and San Francisco, and will then apply lessons learned in those two markets to grow its rider-only testing operations in Los Angeles, according to the company.