Waymo expansion to SF Peninsula, Los Angeles approved

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Waymo’s proposed expansion to deploy driverless autonomous vehicles to the Peninsula and Los Angeles has been approved by the California Public Utilities Commission. Waymo, which is based in Mountain View, submitted a letter in January seeking approval for an expansion.

Last week, the CPUC said it had suspended review of Waymo’s application to operate in San Mateo County and parts of Santa Clara County pending “further review.” At the time, it was expected that the delay would push Waymo’s expansion efforts back by at least four months.

However, on Friday, the CPUC issued a letter saying that the request had been approved with the effective date of March 1, 2024.

According to the letter, Waymo submitted an updated Passenger Safety Plan (PSP) regarding the proposed expansion. The submitted PSP described policies and procedures Waymo has in place to “minimize risk for all passengers in driverless vehicles.”

“These include education of passengers and the public, in-vehicle safety and accessibility features, vehicle identification features and pickup and drop-off protocols, protocols for responding to adverse events both within and outside the vehicle, and protocols for communicating with and supporting passengers,” the CPUC letter went on to say.

CPUC’s Consumer Protection & Enforcement Division (CPED) determined that Waymo had complied “with the requirements of the Deployment Decision” and that the PSP submitted was “complete relative to the requirements described in the Deployment Decision and is reasonable for planned service.”

As a result, the CPED approved the updated PSP and authorized expansion of Waymo’s autonomous driverless service to parts of the Peninsula and Los Angeles. The authorization allows the autonomous vehicle service to begin fared, driverless passenger service in the specified areas immediately.

KRON4 reached out to Waymo for comment on the CPUC’s ruling and received the following statement from a spokesperson:

“We’re grateful to the CPUC for this vote of confidence in our operations, which paves the way for the deployment of our commercial Waymo One service in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Peninsula.

As always, we’ll take a careful and incremental approach to expansion by continuing to work closely with city officials, local communities and our partners to ensure we’re offering a service that’s safe, accessible and valuable to our riders. We’re incredibly grateful for the riders and community partners who have supported our service to date — including +15,000 rides thus far in LA — and we’re looking forward to bringing the benefits of fully autonomous ride-hailing to more people.”

Waymo declined to share specifics regarding plans to expand to the Peninsula.