Gabriel Walker
Dec 15, 2023
Waymo One has finally launched at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
Fulfilling its commitment to normalising the service across all the states of America, the cab is set to be available at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, and only for select customers.
The top-notch, driverless, ride-hailing service was the first ever ride-hailing service in the US by being available to and from the said airport in November 2022.
Areas in which Waymo One is available
Currently, the service is only available in four states of the US, including Phoenix (PHX), San Francisco (SF), Los Angeles (LA), and Austin, Texas (ATX). Meanwhile, the developers are diligently up to make it available across the whole of the United States soon.
Read more: Waymo One: A marvel of autonomous, electric, futuristic ride-hailing
Launched in 2018, Waymo One is a futuristic taxicab service — like Uber and Careem that have expanded their operations globally — which is currently limited to certain states of the US.
Cruising through the troublesome terminal curbs is going to be a new challenge. However, Waymo’s availability will only be observed for a limited duration at the airport, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., and only at Terminals 3 and 4, in order to safely deploy and learn.
The company claims that Waymo has completed “tens of thousands of airport trips to date” and is serving over a thousand rides each week. Furthermore, the average trip rating for its service has been about 4.7 out of 5 stars.
Waymo’s new airport service, which is fully autonomous (meaning no human safety operator behind the wheel) will only be Chris Bonelli, product communications manager at Waymo, told TechCrunch.
According to Chris Bonelli, the product communications manager at Waymo, the newly introduced airport service will be available to “a select cohort of active riders in Phoenix, not necessarily or exclusively to trusted testers.”
The company, owned by Alphabet, plans to make these pickup locations accessible to all of its riders and aims to extend its service to operate 24/7 in the upcoming months as it gains additional expertise at the terminals.
“Last year, we partnered with Waymo to become the first airport in the world to offer travellers the ability to take an autonomous vehicle to the airport,” said Chad Makovsky, aviation director at Sky Harbor Airport, in a statement. “This partnership has allowed us to develop confidence in the technology, and we’re excited to take the next step and safely expand this innovative service to our terminal curbs.”
