The Future of Transportation: Waymo Cars Growing in Popularity
Self-driving cars used to seem like something that could only exist in the future, but they are now becoming part of people’s everyday lives. In cities like Phoenix and San Francisco, people use Waymo vehicles to get to work, school, and even the airport. Waymo is a company that makes self-driving cars as a rideshare option for individuals. As more cities begin to see these cars on the street, it’s clear that this technology is becoming a part of daily transportation.
Waymo started in 2009 as a research project at Google which focused on creating cars that could drive themselves safely. In 2016, they evolved and became their own independent company under Alphabet, Google’s parent company. According to Waymo, their mission is to make roads safer for everyone and to create a sustainable, efficient transportation ecosystem.
The technology that is responsible for Waymo’s vehicles is called the Waymo Driver. It is the fully autonomous system that acts as a “brain” for the car and controls everything without human input. The system uses cameras, radar, and Lidar – sensors that use lasers, to detect other objects such as other cars and pedestrians to plan a safe route towards your destination.
The Waymo Driver uses large amounts of data to handle complex driving situations such as environmental hazards that may be handled differently with people. Waymo says this is better than human error so it improves safety on the road and the likelihood of an accident occurring.
Before launching their system for the public, Waymo spent years testing their system. Through the early and mid 2010s, the company had worked hard to gather driving data and succeeded in simulations. In 2017, they launched their first ever service in Phoenix, Arizona. They called it the Early Rider Program. People could use an app to request a driverless ride and provide feedback as well for free.
Waymo continued working with services, starting with making the services paid in Phoenix and then in San Francisco in the early 2020s. Los Angeles was the next city not long after San Francisco, which brought it to two of California’s largest cities. Expanding into these extremely busy and highly populated areas was an important step for them because it showed how the technology could handle situations like highly dense traffic.
