Robotaxis as public transit? Waymo thinks so

Waymo is teaming up with tech transit startup Via to integrate its autonomous vehicles into metropolis nationalist transit networks, starting with a increasing suburb of Phoenix.

In Chandler, Arizona, Waymo’s robotaxis volition soon articulation the town’s Flex microtransit service. Users publication rides connected the Chandler Flex app to beryllium picked up by a shared conveyance and taken to their destination, often connecting to Valley Metro autobus routes. Soon, users whitethorn beryllium matched with Waymo’s afloat autonomous vehicles arsenic portion of the service.

The work volition tally Monday done Friday, 6AM-9PM, with rides booked done Chandler Flex costing conscionable $2 for regular riders, $1 for seniors and wheelchair users, and escaped for mediate and precocious schoolhouse kids. (Waymo precocious introduced teen accounts successful Phoenix truthful kids arsenic young arsenic 14 tin thrust without their parents.)

The concern has the imaginable unfastened up much passengers to Waymo’s driverless technology. Phoenix residents person been capable to hail a Waymo via the Waymo oregon Uber apps for years now, with rides priced comparably to human-driven rideshare trips. But autonomous rides on a planned way for a low-cost, level fare is definite to unfastened up the exertion to a caller conception of the population.

Chandler Flex operates utilizing exertion developed by Via, which sells bundle and operational services to cities, transit agencies, schools, and different instauration that privation to harvester on-demand ridesharing with nationalist transit. Via’s bundle enables transit officials to make “flexible routes” based connected rider demand, portion besides complying with national and accessibility reporting requirements, the institution says. If everything goes well, Waymo and Via program connected pitching a akin exemplary to different cities for their microtransit needs.

This isn’t the archetypal clip Waymo has dipped a toed successful the nationalist transit world. Last year, Waymo tested retired a strategy to recognition customers who usage robotaxis to connect to oregon from transit stations successful the San Francisco Bay Area. The institution besides offered discounts to transit riders successful Los Angeles.

But immoderate transportation experts worry that autonomous vehicles will siphon riders from transit, which could pb to work cuts. Most ridesharing users don’t privation to transportation to different mode of proscription — they conscionable privation to get to their destination. And regular transit users, which thin to beryllium much low-income, person trouble affording galore rideshare trips.

The microtransit enactment is simply a neat mode astatine circumventing immoderate of these pitfalls. And Waymo isn’t the lone 1 to person this idea. Michigan-based autonomous driving startup May Mobility besides worked with Via to link it with imaginable riders successful Sun City, Arizona, a status assemblage extracurricular of Phoenix. Its vehicles were escaped to usage done the week, though that concern has since concluded.