Waymo Ready To Implement Robo-Taxi Driverless Roaming In San Francisco

Waymo holds a self-driving car license in San Francisco. (photo: doc waymo)

JAKARTA - Alphabet Inc's Waymo announced Monday, March 14, that it is ready to remove safety control drivers from its autonomous vehicles in San Francisco.

But the company, which is also the parent company of Google, did not specify a timeframe for rolling out a fully driverless service from their taxis.

Waymo in August 2021, began providing free autonomous rides to a limited number of people in San Francisco. But in this autonomous taxi, there is still a safety driver supervisor in it. In providing the autonomous taxi, Waymo uses an electric vehicle produced by Jaguar.

Waymo's co-CEO, Tekedra Mawakana, said on Monday that it had given hundreds of people a ride in 'Robo-taxi' over the past six months since launching in the densely populated city.

"The driverless taxi operation, which has been planned for a long time, will mark a "major step on our path to deploying a fully autonomous commercial service", Mawakana said in a blog post, quoted by Reuters.

Waymo and rival Cruise, which is majority-owned by General Motors, earlier this month both obtained permits from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). This permit or license allows them to collect rent from passengers for travel with their existing safety driver in California.

However, they will still need to obtain separate permission from the CPUC to begin collecting fares for fully driverless passenger services in California.

Waymo declined to comment on the status of the driverless permit application completely with CPUC. However, if the permit is issued, it will be an advanced development where robotics systems have replaced the role of professional drivers in the public transportation system.