Waymo is expanding its robotaxi operations into four new cities. The company announced it has begun testing its autonomous vehicles with a safety monitor in Philadelphia. It will also start manual data collection drives in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh.
No timeline was given for when commercial services might launch in these locations. It is also unknown if Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, will partner with other companies for operations there. Such partnerships have been its strategy in cities like Atlanta and Austin, where it works with Uber.
These new cities join a list of over twenty where Waymo is either offering rides, preparing for a commercial launch, or conducting tests. The company is now offering rides on freeways in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Waymo plans to be providing one million rides per week by the end of 2026.
The company claims its vehicles operate at a level five times safer than human drivers, according to data it recently released.
However, this expansion has faced challenges. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating how Waymo’s vehicles operate near school buses. This follows an incident in September where a Waymo vehicle was filmed driving around a stopped school bus in Atlanta.
Further reports this week from an Austin news outlet showed Waymo vehicles have illegally passed school buses that were loading or unloading children multiple times. This includes incidents that occurred after Waymo stated it had deployed software updates intended to fix the problem.