Waymo has opened up its service for fully autonomous ride hailing, with no safety driver, to members of the public. Previously, its trials under the ‘early rider’ program were limited to a small group of testers, subject to NDAs. Members of the company’s Waymo One service will now be able to hail rides in Phoenix, Arizona.
According to a statement from the company, “We’ll start with those who are already a part of Waymo One and, over the next several weeks, welcome more people directly into the service through our app (available on Google Play and the App Store). In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless. We expect our new fully driverless service to be very popular, and we’re thankful to our riders for their patience as we ramp up availability to serve demand.”
The company will also still offer accompanied drives, once it has completed a program of updating its vehicle fleet with barriers to separate passengers and driver. This element of the company’s service has been halted due to the Covid-19 situation.
