Waymo, the self-driving car company, eliminated its waitlist system for Los Angeles County users Tuesday, opening the service to much of Los Angeles County through the Waymo One app.
Waymo cannot pick up riders from the USC campus, but it can be ordered from the Hebrew Union College, USC Hotel or Cardinal Gardens Apartments nearby. In an emailed statement to Annenberg Media, Waymo said that there were no updates to share on USC campus pick-ups or drop-offs, but said that the company had been in touch with USC Transportation.
Waymo vehicles also cannot drive on freeways or provide rides to the Los Angeles International Airport, according to The Verge.
In its initial L.A. rollout, which started last March, the service’s waitlist grew to nearly 300,000 — including some USC students.
Altan Cermik, a junior majoring in business administration, started using Waymo regularly when he got off the waitlist in October. The price, cleanliness and option to use a ride service without interacting with a driver all made Waymo more appealing to Cermik than services such as Uber or Lyft, he said.
“I genuinely feel more comfortable [riding] in a Waymo than I do in an Uber … they will never speed, they’ll never swerve into the road obnoxiously, like all these things that regular humans can do,” Cermik said.
A recent survey conducted by Waymo indicates that Cermik is not alone in his praise for the service. According to the company, 96% of L.A. riders found the service useful.
A test from The Washington Post in September also found that the cost of riding in a Waymo was about the same as an Uber or Lyft, if not cheaper.
In an emailed statement to Annenberg Media, Scott Myers, executive director of Students Against Destructive Decisions, a national safety organization that’s part of a Waymo-led public education initiative, said that “students want to see this technology available to them.”
“Our student voices are loud and should be heard,” the statement said. “Waymo offers future solutions to current transportation priorities, including safety, environment quality and expanded mobility options.’
Tanvi Desai, a sophomore majoring in architecture, said after a Trojan Roundnet club meeting in spring 2024, she and other members of the club used Waymo around 1 a.m. to get downtown. When her friend ordered the ride, Desai said she felt it was a safer decision than using Uber or Lyft, given the time of night and the location they were ordering the ride from in University Park.
Although Desai said she had a positive experience when using Waymo, she doesn’t know if she would install the app and use it regularly in the daytime.
“I could see a lot of students using it,” Desai said, “But, personally, I don’t know.”
Zach Meyer, a sophomore majoring in music industry, said he was also hesitant about using Waymo. His concerns surrounded the safety of the service’s artificial intelligence system.
“I’m willing to use a tool that gets things wrong if I’m typing a paper and I can just delete part of it,” Meyer said. “But if I’m using an AI tool for something where I’m being driven in a motorized vehicle, I am a lot more scared.”
In the 25 million miles its cars traveled in Phoenix and San Francisco, Waymo reported that there were 72% fewer injury-causing crashes than human drivers driving the same distances in the same cities.
For Meyer, data on improved technology and company expansion won’t convince him to test out the service. He would be more motivated to try Waymo if people he knew said they felt safe when they tried it themselves.
“Would I ever get in a self-driving car? I think the answer is yes. Would the thing that makes me want to go into one be that the technology got better? I don’t think so,” Meyer said. “I think it’s going to be more of, how have I heard other people who have used it themselves say that it was super safe and that they actually felt a lot more comfortable.”