On Wednesday, Waymo, the automated self-driving taxi service, announced that they would be extending their services to freeways. According to the company’s website, the expansion arrives after “extensive operational preparation.”
In a statement to Annenberg Media, Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp said vehicles have begun offering riders trips on freeways across San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix as of Nov. 12. Further, Waymo’s San Francisco Bay Area service has also be extended to include San Jose, Karp said.
Passengers hailing trips through the Waymo app will have the option of expressing interest in being among the first to experience a freeway ride, according to Karp. Riders may also be given the option of a freeway trip when a freeway route is potentially faster, she added.
Rahul Jain, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at USC Viterbi and director of the USC Center for Autonomy and AI, expressed surprise that Waymo waited to implement access until now. Although Waymo is the first self-driving car to offer service on the freeways, Jain said cars with advanced driver systems capable of driving on freeways have already existed for some time.
“[Cars with advanced driver systems] have been driving on freeways and highways pretty much autonomously for the last five to seven years,” he said. “I think this technology is a lot more mature than city driving, which is a lot more challenging.”
Waymo’s self-driving taxis were first implemented in LA in November 2024, and now operate at all hours in a 120 square mile radius across LA. Waymo’s price is also typically slightly higher in comparison to other ride-hailing services such as Lyft or Uber.
Jain added that Waymo’s expansion is another shift of progress towards autonomous ride services becoming ubiquitous in major cities and — eventually, he predicted — across the country.
Waymo’s autonomous taxis have sometimes raised questions regarding the safety and reliability of self-driving vehicles on public roads.
The company recently came under fire after one of their vehicles ran over a bodega cat in San Francisco in October. Customers have also had issues including Waymo cars driving around in circles, failing to stop for school buses and honking their horns at other Waymo vehicles during off-hours. In April, the California Department of Motor Vehicles proposed regulations to govern the testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles and improve their protocols for interacting with first responders, targeting self-driving vehicles like Waymos, Zoox and WeRide.
Riders have had mixed reactions to potential safety concerns regarding Waymo’s upcoming expansion to the freeways. Emily Teo, a sophomore business and computer science major, said she frequently used Waymos before getting her own vehicle and plans to use the service more often now that it can travel longer distances.
“I would definitely want to use them more,” Teo said. “I think it still comes down to timing and the cost, less of where or how they get places for me.”
Sophomore psychology student Ian Wipfli said he avoids Waymo’s taxis out of a lingering wariness of their safety measures. He said he feels the service expansion could potentially cause issues, especially at the high speeds cars use on freeways.
“I think that freeways just have such a high speed that the reaction time is very important,” Wipfli said. “I’m not sure if that’s something that AI are really built for in comparison to humans.”
Similarly, Sylvia Lou, a sophomore double majoring in business administration and applied mathematics, also said she prefers not to use Waymo because she finds their taxis’ speed inefficient and prices too high.
“They’re slower and sometimes, I would check the price, and it’d be cheaper to order an Uber or Lyft than a Waymo,” Lou said.
Jain said Waymo’s service expansion will likely happen in stages, and added that although driving on the freeways may appear to be a complex task, the technology will likely only continue to improve as the taxis continue to offer rides.
“The technology is improving pretty quickly, so whatever behavior we see from these vehicles today is not going to be how they’re going to behave in one year from now,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot better.”