Tribune News Service — Waymo helped revolutionize self-driving. Now the company will deploy its cars to fix city roads.
On Thursday, executives at Waymo announced a partnership with the navigation app Waze to identify each pothole that Waymo cars encounter, and send that data to city officials. Waymo and Waze are both subsidiaries of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. If effective, their pilot could serve as a remarkable example of Silicon Valley taking over a function that’s historically handled — often not very efficiently, many residents would say — by municipal public works departments.
So far, Waymo and Waze have rolled out their program in the Bay Area, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Austin, documenting about 500 potholes across those places. At least one government leader welcomed the help.
“We’re always looking for innovative ways to deliver better services for residents, including our own work using object detection through cameras on city vehicles,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who is running for governor of California . He acknowledged that Waymo cars, with their suite of sensors and fine-grained perception of road conditions, may detect a hole or divot faster than a human inspector or camera on a city truck.
Technologists at Waymo said their method of funneling data provides a more nuanced “picture of road health” than relying on residents to call 311. The data would also be available to drivers who use the Waze app, who could then bypass holes in the roads and spare their tires.
Filling the potholes would still be the job of public works crews.
“Waymo is already making roads safer where we operate,” said Arielle Fleischer, policy development and research manager at Waymo. “We want to build on the safety benefits of our service by partnering with organizations and city officials to help improve the infrastructure we all depend on.”
It’s not the first time an outside entity has attempted to speed up pothole repair when city workers fell behind. Six years ago, two men who dubbed themselves “Pothole Vigilantes” drove a Toyota pickup truck through Oakland, its bed loaded with EZ Street asphalt. They stopped at each gash in the pavement, poured in the mixture, and tamped it down.
Residents were delighted. City officials responded coolly, saying they did not recommend that laypeople do this work themselves. (Waymo does not operate in Oakland, a city notorious for potholes.)
The Waymo and Waze pilot, as described, would be less obtrusive and has found favor with local governments. A spokesperson for Waymo said it will not require official permits or approvals.
"This is purely additive,” the spokesperson said. “It’s not meant to replace anything.”
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Waymo to Send Pothole Data to Bay Area City Officials
The self-driving car company, in partnership with Waze, is cataloging street condition information as its vehicles drive and sending it to cities such as San Jose.
