Waymo has been given permission to map the roads at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) through a temporary permit, the first step in the offer of the alphabet company to unlock a potentially lucrative use case for its robotaxis.
The temporal permit, which was announced Monday night by the mayor of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie, began on March 14.
Waymo vehicles will not work autonomously at the airport. Employees will manually drive vehicles to map the area. However, the permission indicates the beginning of a gradual approach to Waymo eventually operating commercially there.
“This mapping permit is an important step to take the Waymo service to the millions of people traveling to and from the city every year,” according to a statement from Nicole Gavel, head of business development and strategic associations in Waymo. “Many of those travelers have placed SFO at the top of their list of desire for expansion of service.”
The permission marks a change for Waymo, which Could not ensure permission In 2023 for Mapar Sfo. It also comes with some attached chains, including data exchange, according to the language in the agreement seen by TechCrunch. It is likely that this language will be included in future agreements with the city and the San Francisco Airport Commission, since Waymo pushes a gradual approach that begins with the mapping, followed by autonomous evidence with a human security operator, driver without driver and, finally, commercial operations.
Waymo has to provide specific data after each mapping session per vehicle, according to the agreement that Techcrunch saw. This “data interface agreement” requires Waymo to track its vehicles as they enter and leave the airport and provide time, geographical location, identification, travel identifier, transaction type, the single identifier based on the driver and the vehicle registration number, according to the agreement.
The agreement also prohibits Waymo using autonomous vehicles to move commercial goods. Waymo He closed his driver -free truck program in 2023And the company has redoubled its efforts to transport people, not to packages. However, language protects against future commercial delivery applications, which has raised concerns between The International Teamsters Brotherhood.
The restriction was enough to obtain the blessing of Peter Finn, vice president of the western region of Teamsters.
“We would like to thank Mayor Lurie for his leadership by gathering the parties and the director of the OFS, Mike Nakornkhet, for creating a workforce for the implementation responsible for a new technology that takes into account the impact on security, work and community,” Finn said in a statement.
Waymo increased efforts More than a year ago To obtain access to collection and falls in SFO, according to the emails seen and informed by Techcrunch at that time.
The approval process is long and requires a separate approval from the San Francisco Airport Commission. Technically, permits can be issued at the discretion of the airport, said the of the OFS, Doug Yakel, to TechCrunch last year.
However, they are expected to reflect the process that the OFS’s officials passed when Uber and Lyft sought access for the first time more than a decade ago. For now, Waymo has a temporary access agreement to map the roads of the SFO airport. Waymo will eventually need a land transport permit to operate in SFO, which has not yet been approved.