Waymo has announced an expansion of its autonomous vehicle service onto Phoenix freeways, having been in operation for over a year on standard roads, a move that now encompasses the Los Angeles area, as reported by FOX 10 Phoenix.
According to FOX10 Phoenix, the service requires riders to hail rides through the Waymo app, where they can also indicate their interest in freeway travel, said Dmitri Dolgov, co-CEO of Waymo, "Achieving fully autonomous freeway operations is a profound engineering feat—easy to conceive, yet hard to truly master," in a statement emphasized the gravity of this technical achievement while heralding it as emblematic of Waymo's innovation and operational maturity, as freeway driving presents its own complex challenges when compared to urban streets.
According to Arizona's Family, Waymo's move to freeway driving has stirred mixed reactions among local motorists, with some expressing anxiety and skepticism about the safety of sharing high-speed lanes with autonomous vehicles; Fred Hill from Chandler bluntly stated, "I don’t like it," while Nicole SmallCanyon from San Tan Valley admitted the autonomous cars add "that extra layer of anxiety" when she encounters them on the road.
However, ASU professor and AI expert Andrew Maynard told Arizona's Family about the extensive testing and safety measures behind Waymo's technology, but he expressed curiosity about how the vehicles will respond to the unexpected behaviors of human drivers at freeway speeds; "it’s trying to adopt to other people that do unexpected things and so question with Waymo is are they going to be better or worse than human drivers at anticipating those other drivers that seem to be a little crazy," he said.
After incidents during a storm in September where several Waymo vehicles stopped unexpectedly, and with a history of other minor mishaps, public trust in autonomous vehicles remains cautious. Phoenix driver Malik Johnson, as reported by Arizona's Family, isn't confident the technology is infallible, noting that computers may not be prepared for the abrupt maneuvers often seen on freeways.
Nonetheless, Waymo's spokesperson stated that vehicles will adhere to the maximum posted speed limits on freeways, with room for slight adjustments as deemed necessary for safety or exceptional conditions, and the program's expansion follows concerted efforts with both the Arizona Department of Public Safety and California Highway Patrol to ensure the integration of such advanced operations smoothly transitions into other service areas.
