in the coming weeks

Alphabet-owned Waymo says it’s ready to begin offering autonomous, “rider-only” trips on freeways in Phoenix, Arizona nearly 15 years after its founding. Waymo will take a multi-phased approach to freeway testing by initially restricting rides to employees as passengers before eventually opening the service up to customers using its Waymo One ride hailing app.in the coming weeks  That relatively methodical rollout follows months of trouble for the leading autonomous vehicle (AV) competitor Cruise, who was forced to freeze all operations in California last year following a string of safety concerns.

, which already offers publicly available rides in parts of Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, explained its plans for new freeway testing in a recent blog post. The company will use what it calls a “phased approach” where it will first offer “rider only” freeway commutes to Waymo employees in Phoenix. Employees will provide feedback on both the service and rider experience which Waymo says it will analyze before expanding rides to the wider public. Waymo did not provide any hard dates on when that expansion would occur, opting instead to say it would operate in a “step-by-step manner.” A Waymo spokesperson told PopSci that employees would begin taking these trips on freeway  in Phoenix “in the coming weeks.

in the coming weeks’ SoftAIT

Waymo’s acceleration onto freeways comes just months after GM-backed Cruise, one of the top players in the AV space, was forced to freeze operations in California. In October, in the coming weeks multiple vehicles from Cruise’s fleet of driverless Chevrolet Bolt’s were reportedly responsible for causing lengthy, frustrating traffic jams. Around that same time, another Cruise vehicle reportedly ran over a woman and dragged her after a hit and run driver collided with the pedestrian and flung her into the AV’s path. Another Cruise vehicle operating in San Francisco drove into wet cement. Those incidents and growing pushback ultimately ended with the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspending Cruise’s testing permits. Cruise froze all US driverless operations and CEO Kyle Vogt resigned. Regulators forced Cruise off the road before it could begin offering rides on freeways.

Over its years of development,in the coming weeks  Waymo has tried to distinguish itself from other competitors in the AV sp

in the coming weeks taxis

in the coming weeks General public queasiness around AVs makes commitments to safety and transparency all the more crucial. 63% of US adults surveyed by Pew Research in 2022 said they would not want to ride in a driverless vehicle, with another 45% saying they wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing a road with one. Almost everyone in that survey (87%) agreed driverless vehicles should have higher testing standards than regular vehicles.