Waymo has been granted permission to design roads at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) through a temporary permit – the first step in the Alphabet Company offer to unlock a potentially profitable use case for its robot.
The temporary permit, which was notified on Monday evening by San Francisco President Daniel Lurie, began March 14.
Waymo vehicles will not operate autonomously at the airport. Employees will manually drive vehicles to design the area. However, the permit signals the start of a phase approach to Waymo eventually operating commercially there.
“This mapping permit is an important step towards behavior of Waymo service for millions of people traveling to and from the city every year,” according to a statement by Nicole Gavel, head of business development and strategic partnerships in Waymo. “Many of those travelers have set back on top of the list of wishes to expand their service.”
The permit marks a turn for Waymo, which failed to obtain a permit in 2023 to design a background. It also comes with several attached wires, including data sharing, according to the language in the deal viewed by Techcrunch. This language is likely to be included in future agreements with the City Airport Commission and San Francisco after Waymo pushes a phase approach that begins with mapping, followed by autonomous testing with a human safety operator, driverless testing and eventually commercial operations.
Waymo should provide specific data after each vehicle cartography session, according to the agreement viewing Techcrunch. This “data interface agreement” requires Waymo to trace its vehicles as they enter and leave the airport and provide time, geographical location, identification, travel identifier, transaction type, unique driver -based identifier and number of vehicle license plates, according to agreement.
The deal also stops Waymo from using autonomous vehicles to move trading goods. Waymo closed his self-driving truck program in 2023, and the company has since doubled its efforts to transfer people-not packets. However, the language protects against future applications of commercial distribution, which has raised concerns among the International Teamsters Brotherhood.
The restriction was sufficient to receive the blessing of Peter Finn, the Vice President of the Western Teamsters region.
“We would like to thank President Lurie for his leadership in the unification of the parties and the director of SFO Mike Nakornkheti for the creation of a model for the responsible implementation of 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 gain access to wagons and abandonment in the background, according to electronic posts viewed and reported by Techcrunch at the time.
The approval process is long and requires special approval by the San Francisco Airport Commission. Technically, permits can be issued at the airport’s discretion, SFO Doug Yakel spokesman told Techcrunch last year.
However, it is expected to reflect the process that SFO officials went through when Uber and Lyft for the first time required access more than a decade ago. Right now, Waymo has a temporary entry agreement to design the roads of the SFO Airport. Waymo will eventually need a land transport permit to operate in SFO, which should not yet be approved.
