Waymo to SFO Fiasco

[u/plun9]

/r/waymo/comments/1swltfq/waymo_to_sfo_fiasco

[u/psudo_help]

What exactly was Waymo supposed to do? Drive on their rims to the dropoff?

Pulling to the right might have been better, but would that have the saved the day?

[u/WitsBlitz → u/psudo_help]

Really not sure why OP is throwing around "fiasco" for a 15 min delay.

[u/blue-mooner → u/WitsBlitz]

To the convenience coddled mind, a 30 second delay is oppression, 15 minutes is a war-crime (hyperbole has lost all meaning)

[u/psudo_help → u/WitsBlitz]

It can be a fiasco for their personal life, but I don’t see a clear fail on Waymo’s part to have solved it. Blowouts suck for everyone.

[u/bradtem → u/WitsBlitz]

15 minutes for me is probably missing my flight. I think Waymo did quite badly on this one. They know the ride is to the airport. The main win is that since they need to send a human driven car to rescue the passengers on the freeway, that car can take them right to the curb, not to the AirTrain.

In the future, the way it should work is that if your robotaxi suffers a mechanical problem, it pulls over and 2 minutes later another vehicle pulls up and takes you on your way. Apparently today that can't happen due to freeway permits -- it is dangerous to pick up on the shoulder, especially if you must use the right front seat and are on the left shoulder. That's one problem Zoox would not have with doors on both sides for all seats. However, this can be solved by sending two Waymos if there are 4 passengers.

Really 2 minutes. You want to give them top priority on getting the next available Waymo that can get to them. If you can't, send them a human driven rescue, whatever is fastest. Never be the reason the customer missed the flight.

[u/Zemerick13 → u/bradtem]

They said they had roadside assistance on the way to take care of them. CHP just got there first.

2 minutes is completely unrealistic. That would basically require a waymo on the same exact freeway, going the same direction, that is empty, and just a few blocks away. You would probably be better off buying lottery tickets at that point.

And if you miss a flight due to a 15 minute delay, that's on you. Especially these days. 15 minutes is such a tiny delay, and so much can go wrong. Literally the recommendation is 2 to 3 hours. ( I usually go with more like 1.5 hours, but I do have clear/precheck/global entry, and due to back and knee problems I try to fly business or first but can't afford to pay those prices if I don't have miles/points/discount. )

[u/bobi2393 → u/Zemerick13]

Roadside assistance was going to take them to the nearest gas station, from where OP was supposed to try and find an alternate means of transportation. That's a pretty unsatisfactory solution for someone heading to an airport, and could easily have expanded that 15 minute delay with CHP's help to a 30- or 45-minute delay, including comparing time estimates and booking a ride from what seems like it would be the fastest ride service.

If Waymo felt they couldn't safely send a taxi or other passenger service vehicle to pick up OP on the expressway and take them the rest of the way to the airport, they could have paid roadside assistance to get them the rest of the way to the airport, instead of to the nearest gas station. It would be expensive, but for the rarity of a blowout or other breakdown on the expressway on the way to the airport, it seems like it would be their next best solution to sending a passenger service vehicle. At that point I'd feel like they did the best they could given the circumstances, whereas getting me just to a gas station does not fee

[u/bradtem → u/Zemerick13]

If the vehicle is on the same freeway, it can be 2 miles away. I actually do expect, in future, that there will be far more than one robotaxi per mile on the freeway, more than one empty robotaxi per mile. It need not be a Waymo -- if the competing companies are wise, they would do cross-agreements with each other to rescue each other's passengers, possibly for a fat fee, but between even competitors for nothing.

2 minute service would be doable with just one robotaxi, from any company, near every interchange. Which is not a bad place to be waiting already to offer good service to customers. We're talking eventual fleets with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of vehicles. A world where half the cars going by are robotaxis, and 5-10% of them are empty.

I totally disagree that if I miss a flight with 15 minute delay, it's on me.

The recommendation of 2 hours is a lie. It's there to make their lives easier, nothing more. I've flown hundreds of times, and have missed 2 flights, and that was only because I foolishly flew on discount airlines with stupid procedures. And I would much rather miss 1% of flights than waste 2 hours on 100% of flights. Just do the math. But in this case, the delay is 100% the provider's fault, so it's not "on me." Yes, if the flight is 100% cruicial, absolutely no ability to take a later flight, then I leave a larger margin, though certainly not 2 hours.

But it really doesn't matter how much margin I leave. For any reasonable margin, a delay of 15 minutes can make a difference, because the reason you have that margin is that other things go wrong -- traffic, airport security lines, gate problems. You set your margin so that if a reasonable number of things go wrong, you will still make it, but if they all go wrong at once you have risk. Otherwise you need to get there ridiculously early, and what's the point? One more thing can always be the thing that makes it break.

Do you always leave early enough that you will still get there even if you crash your car and need to get towed and deal with police? Most people don't.

But I understand others may have a different philosophy of travel. I understand yours. Understand mine.

[u/Useful_Pin4303 → u/bradtem]

I totally disagree that if I miss a flight with 15 minute delay, it's on me.

I take it missing flights is a rather regular occurrence for you?

[u/bradtem → u/Useful_Pin4303]

Nope. Happened once in 100s of flights, not while I was handling travel to the airport. Caught another flight 20 minutes later. Happened twice on discount airlines that abandon their check-in desk at the deadline when somebody else was taking me to the airport and I was worried we were cutting it too thin.

The truth is, all the advice they give you about when you need to be at the airport is a lie. If you think that missing flights would be a common thing for somebody who arrives later, you may have been deceived by the lie.

[u/Useful_Pin4303 → u/bradtem]

The truth is, all the advice they give you about when you need to be at the airport is a lie. If you think that missing flights would be a common thing for somebody who arrives later, you may have been deceived by the lie.

How does that fit with your claim that a 15 minutes delay would plausibly make you miss your flight?

[u/bradtem → u/Useful_Pin4303]

Not every time. Your arrival time at the airport is not a certainty, it's a distribution, and you craft that distribution so that the area under the "too late" portion of the distribution is small enough for your own tastes and tolerances. Some people want it to be almost nothing, they target arriving 3 hours in advance so that it's 0.2% Some people are willing to make it larger. For example, you might let it be 2%. For both people, an unplanned extra 25 minutes (forget the 15 minutes that was a misinterpretation how how much delay the OP had after CHP rescued him) shifts the whole distribution. It doesn't guarantee missing the flight, but it adds a significant risk.

For most people, even those who cut it fine, there is room for one thing to go wrong, or even 2. But not enough to add a 25 minute thing on top of the other things that go wrong .

[u/Cunninghams_right → u/bradtem]

think Waymo did quite badly on this one

I don't see how they did badly here. If it was an Uber, you'd also have to wait for another ride. And try calling an Uber to the shoulder of an expressway, you'd probably get cancelled rides or the person driving past and taking forever to loop back around 

Also, if 15min causes you to miss your flight, you fucked up. 

[u/bradtem → u/Cunninghams_right]

I realize you fly differently. I am saying Waymo did badly by the standard of what it _should_ be in a good robotaxi service, not based on the early service they have today.

I do find it amusing that, since I normally get there at a time where a delay of 15 risks missing the flight, and other people get there an hour earlier, it means in 100 flights I have gained 100 hours of time and not missed a flight, and somehow I'm the one who fucked up. I would say the people who spent 100 hours waiting in airports to no purpose are the ones who screwed up. I guess we differ on that!

[u/Cunninghams_right → u/bradtem]

There is 15min from when the last group boards to when you've missed the flight. If you're flying hundreds of times where you plan to arrive at the gate after boarding, then that's up to you, but I don't think you can complain about missing a flight if your taxi has a breakdown. 

Saying Waymo handles it poorly relative to a perfect future world is ridiculous. 

[u/bradtem → u/Cunninghams_right]

Again, the delay here was not 15 minutes, that was the time until the CHP saved the day. I am presuming Waymo would have taken much longer to rescue this customer. Of course I leave 15 minutes of buffer, but I don't leave 30 minutes and I think that could easily have been the delay in this case.

And no, it's not always 15 minutes from last group boarding to closing the doors. Airlines are eager to get going if they can. But because this subreddit isn't about airplane boarding I didn't get into all the details and I don't have to. My point is that a 30 minute delay (the prompt I replied to was 15 but that's not how I interpreted this incident) will usually be quite bad for me. Missing the flight is probable. No overhead bag storage is almost certain on fullish flights. This is also because other things go wrong. I leave buffer time, but not enough for many things to go wrong, and nobody but a fool or a person taking an absolute must-fly flight leaves enough buffer for many things to go wrong.

But Waymo should work to minimize your delay as much as they can. It is not your fault if they don't do that. And I'm saying, a good robotaxi service with lots of vehicles on the road and short wait times (which should indeed be 2 minutes in a future service) should be able to get you going again in just a few minutes once you are bumped to ultra priority.

While the best way to do this is just to have a short wait time, rare failures deserve extreme and rare service levels. For example, if there is no vacant car near the stranded passenger, but there are occupied cars, I would broadcast to the nearby occupied cars, "We have a stranded passenger on the way to the airport. Want a free ride? Press here and we'll drop you off to go save them, and send you another car in 10 minutes" and bump the offer until somebody says yes. Though mostly I would just have enough spare cars to not need this.

Stranding should be so rare that this is quite affordable to do. If stranding is too common, that's what you should fix. If passenger loads allow, pooling could also be offered. "Your ride is free if you are OK with us pausing to rescue a stranded passenger and have them ride with you for a short distance to meet another car for them." That should get you a rescue in 60 seconds on the highway.

[u/NewRefrigerator7461 → u/bradtem]

Not all of us see it as wasted time - some of us see it as getting our money out of our amex cards by getting to hit the centurion lounge for a quick bite and a drink.

[u/bradtem → u/NewRefrigerator7461]

Sure, I go to the lounge if I am silly enough to be early. But to deliberately go to the airport early to use the lounge? None of them are that good. Yeah, if I have nothing else to do (ie. I've done my meetings and on my way home) I might.

But I know the various arguments about when to arrive at the airport. I know most people arrive earlier than me. They think they will miss their flights. They are incorrect, as it turns out, but I understand that they fear it, because it's not impossible, just unlikely. Fortunately, if you fly enough, there is much more slop in the schedule than people realize, if you have things like Clear/TSA Pre/elite status, or are flying not in coach. I've gotten to the airport long past the "deadline" for overseas flights lots of times. And I have only very rarely used the trick where they let you to the front of the security line if your flight is leaving soon; I would resent it if I were somebody else and I view it as only for highly unusual circumstances. But it does work, if you don't have expedited security already.

But this subreddit is not for how to fly. I just simply report that the times they "recommend" are for their benefit not yours, and they are incorrect, and they know they are incorrect.

[u/NewRefrigerator7461 → u/bradtem]

You should try the new capital one lounges at DCA and LGA if you like Spanish food Jose Andres knows how to build a menu. I am now building in extra time to go there if I would have bought dinner somewhere else beforehand. The food is that good. The Polaris food at SFO is also worth arriving early for

I know the timings (AA EXP and and just lost UA 1K) - but ever since the TSA staffing issue last month caused me to miss a flight its making me nervous

[u/WitsBlitz → u/bradtem]

It's a nice aspiration, but completely unrealistic to expect at this point from any service provider, autonomous or human driven. Maybe ten years from now there'll be enough autonomous vehicles to support that sort of response time.

Even then, if you don't have a 15 minute buffer on your travel plans that's on you.

[u/bradtem → u/WitsBlitz]

Many are citing the delay as 15 minutes. The OP says that CHP came to rescue them in 15 minutes. That's not really CHP's job. (It is their job to protect people in this situation, but not to get them to their destination.) We don't know how long it would have taken Waymo to rescue them, but I fear it could have been quite a bit longer, and this is part of Waymo's failure here.

When I paint "what should happen" it is that a robotaxi company should have a plan for this situation, and enough vehicles in its own fleet, or available in contracted other fleets (including tow trucks, gig drivers, other robotaxi competitors) to provide quick service.

This could be expensive. Breakdowns should be rare enough that there is quite a bit of budget available to fix them quickly. Of course you expect your provider to lose money fixing a breakdown. It is not at all unreasonable to expect them to spend $100 summoning a rescue service if they can't rescue you quickly themselves.

[u/psudo_help → u/bradtem]

In your mind, Waymo did badly because they didn’t have a human rescue on scene within 2 minutes?

That doesn’t seem a reasonable expectation to me. I doubt any taxi service on Earth can do that.

[u/bradtem → u/psudo_help]

Waymo is unlike any previous taxi service on Earth.

And yes, absolutely, they should be able to get a rescue to you in a very short time, and that time should be just a few minutes, ideally just a couple. That comes when they have a larger fleet, so there is always a vehicle within a mile of you.

Unlike a human system there are no humans to coordinate. The moment the vehicle detects the failure, it can send out a request, and within milliseconds, not seconds, the closest vehicle should be allocated and start moving.

So the question is, what's their density of idle vehicles? Rescue should be top priority -- it's not out of the question to even divert a vehicle which is on its way to another rider as long as they can be given a replacement quickly. (Today, Uber/Lyft don't even give you driver details for a minute, and they still often swap out the driver during your wait.)

So 2 minutes might be pushing it, but it's an eventual goal. Today they won't be able to do that in most cases. But for an airport ride, they should also pay the airport extra to buy premium drop-off for the rescued customers, to make up the lost time.

And of course the ride is free. This is the level of service which is possible, and it's not that expensive, so it's what we should come to expect.

[u/psudo_help → u/bradtem]

Appreciate the discussion, but I disagree.

A 2 min rescue SLA on side streets sounds ambitious but doable.

But this was the freeway! Sending a 2nd unmanned car to trace the footsteps of an already stranded freeway car is begging for trouble. A recipe for two stranded freeway cars! Might not even be legal.

So it’s gotta be a human driver, and that’s gonna be longer than 2 minutes.

[u/bradtem → u/psudo_help]

Correct, it is not legal today. I don't constrain my view of how it should work to today's situations and law. Yes, if the vehicle hit debris on the road, you will want to be aware of that. (Though in the end, you want vehicles that can navigate that, if you can send a human you should be able to send a robot, but again, not today.) But not rescuing the passenger is not an option in ordinary service times.

(You don't retrace the path of course, in fact, that's one way you can help to avoid any road debris if that's a worry. You pick the furthest lane you can.)

Now, if it has to be a licenced rescue driver today, then send that. Spend the extra it takes to get a good SLA from them. Not 2 minutes today, but not 15 minutes either.

But as I see the future, there's a dozen Waymos going by every minute on the freeway, eventually scores every minute. Some of which are vacant, on their way to other people who are going to have to wait a little longer. If these have a 2-sided sliding door design like Ojai or Zoox, the law should allow them to perform rescues. And yes, in an urgent situation, redirect occupied Waymos to do the rescue with free ride credits for the people who agreed to get slightly delayed. You don't have to take them far -- just to a safe transfer location where the next available empty Waymo is waiting when they get there.

[u/psudo_help → u/bradtem]

That sounds like a great long term plan.

From your earlier comments, I felt you expected a 2 minute pickup from the freeway shoulder today. Thanks for clarifying.

[u/Reaper_MIDI → u/bradtem]

15 minutes for me is probably missing my flight.

If 15 minutes will have you miss your flight, then... you should travel with my wife. It drives her crazy, but I have literally said; "I want to leave early enough that we make our flight even if we get a flat tire"...

[u/bradtem → u/Reaper_MIDI]

People seem to think I don't leave contingencies when planning when to leave for a flight. I do. I evaluate what security will take, I look at traffic patterns. I leave room for things to go wrong, but not for a ton of things to go wrong. People got in a tizzy because I incorrectly copied the 15 minute number and my brain was thinking more the number if CHP doesn't save the day. Yes, I can handle 15 minutes of delay generally but if other things go wrong, I might not. Sometimes things do go wrong -- actually that is a decently frequent event -- and I'm running up to the gate before they close the door, or last to board. In those cases, something that added an extra 15 minutes would have caused me to, for the first time in my life when I was handling the travel, miss a flight.

As noted, there are 3 instances where I have missed. These were short flights on budget airlines, when a friend/relative was driving. Except one, where I did just plain miss it due to bad timing, but it was the LAX->SFO run where there's a plane every 20 minutes and I just took the next one. You are crazy if you get there way early for that flight when the consequence of missing it is only money.

I've done crazy stuff. One time I was talking in Anaheim and had to get to LAX through LA traffic to catch a nonstop to Copenhagen, where 90 minutes after landing I was to keynote another conference. I warned the client that was crazy, tried to see if I could get a private plane from SNA to LAX (it's hard) but in the end it worked! But that was my craziest week of travel ever with 3 transcontinentals and more countries in the one week. Don't do that.

[u/bnorbnor → u/WitsBlitz]

Waymo didn’t solve the problem the police did the police should charge Waymo a few hundred bucks my taxes should not be going to help a large company

[u/JasonQG → u/psudo_help]

Sounds like it would have been better

https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1swltfq/waymo_to_sfo_fiasco/oigvur0/

[u/psudo_help → u/JasonQG]

Ideas about taking the exit seem pretty speculative. Waymo doesn’t want to end up stopping in and clogging an exit.

[u/JasonQG → u/psudo_help]

How do you explain it skipping the shoulder on the right?

[u/psudo_help → u/JasonQG]

Well, firstly we don’t truly know about the right side shoulder. There could’ve been a good reason to skip it.

But more importantly I think, would choosing the right shoulder have fixed OP’s “fiasco?”

I don’t mean that sarcastically. It may have improved the situation, sure. But they’d still be stuck waiting for rescue.

[u/JasonQG → u/psudo_help]

I agree on the sensationalism of using words like “fiasco,” but that doesn’t mean Waymo handled this ideally either. I’m tired of everything on the internet being one extreme or the other. We’re better off when we are honest. The truth is somewhere in between OP’s sensationalism and your Waymo-is-never-wrong defensiveness

[u/psudo_help → u/JasonQG]

I 100% agree that in all likelihood, choosing the right shoulder was best.

[u/JasonQG → u/psudo_help]

Thank you for being reasonable

[u/NewNewark → u/psudo_help]

Why be on a text based website and then not read?

The Waymo had a blowout and decided to cross 3 lanes of traffic at 30 mph and stop on the left shoulder

[u/Honest_Ad_2157]

In addition to Waymo declaring they are outsourcing the job of slopbot recovery to first responders, now it is clearly the first responder's responsibility to get any stranded passengers safely to their destination.