Waymo announced that starting today, Waymo One riders can now access an additional 45 square miles of Metro Phoenix, which now covers a whopping 225 square miles of The Valley! The expanded service area stretches further north to Uptown Phoenix and as far as Gainey Ranch. The service also grows south of the city to South Mountain Village and East to more of Downtown Mesa.
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The newly added destinations in Phoenix for Waymo riders include Camelback Mountain, McCormick Ranch, The Farm at South Mountain and many award-winning resorts across The Valley.
In addition to the expansion, Waymo One is implementing key software updates to increase the reliability and usability of the service:
- Riders should experience improved pick-ups and drop-offs and more confident, predictable driving maneuvers.
- Pedestrians should have more human-like interactions with our vehicles, as we plan to start adding new ways for vehicles to communicate intent with other road users through audio and visual cues.
- A plethora of other back-end improvements should also result in more consistent driving performance and fleet efficiencies.
To service such a large area and better accommodate longer trips, Waymo One continues to test its vehicles on the freeway with employees and an autonomous specialist behind the wheel. Waymo One is serving well over 10 thousand trips per week to public riders, not including employees. This latest expansion and strong ridership in Metro Phoenix will play a large role as the company continues to scale over time.
The news was announced this morning by Waymo’s chief product officer, Saswat Panigrahi, which can be found here.
