Waymo is Finally Testing Scheduled Rides in LA, SF and Phoenix!
This is definitely a customer friendly feature but will it hurt Waymo's utilization?
Over the past couple days, Waymo has been sending out invites to some Trusted Testers in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix to try out its new “Scheduled Rides” feature. The product lets users book a ride anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour in advance. Waymo has been working on scheduled rides since October 2024 but this is the first time we’ve seen any kind of public facing product - and the best part is that riders are already booking rides with the feature and sharing their feedback on social media.
The product is straightforward: you can book an exact time and there are 10 minute interval options available. Here’s a neat first hand experience from Reddit user Icy-Ambition3534.
🧍♂️7:25 am: Requested a ride for an 8 am pickup. Got a splash screen saying the car would arrive in 34 minutes with an 8 am pickup time.
🚙💨7:41 am: I got a notification that the car was on its way, with “17 minutes to pickup time”.
✨7:57 am: Got a notification that the car had arrived and would leave in 7 minutes.
🚨8:01 am: I’m finally walking out to meet the car and the timer shows 2:44 left. 😑 Barely made it.
Overall, it seems like a great experience, and I think riders will be happy with the product. The only immediate issue I noticed was that if the Waymo arrives before your scheduled pick-up time, the 2/5 minute timer shouldn’t start early. It should start at the time you scheduled the ride for (8 am in this instance). And it might be nice to have 5 minute pick-up intervals instead of 10.
The 10 minute to 1 hour advance booking feature seems fine for now, but I imagine the more advanced booking, the better (especially for airport rides for example).
For those wondering about the pace of Waymo’s product innovation, it took 4+ months to get this feature live from the time it was first spotted. Not sure how high of a priority it was for the company but I do think it was one of the top requested rider features since it solves the dreaded ‘no cars available/long ETA’ issue that has plagued Waymo.
The Big Picture
This is a great feature for riders, but it will hurt Waymo’s overall utilization. There’s a reason why booking a private SUV to the airport costs 2-4x more than just hailing an Uber Black—a driver’s efficiency takes a hit.
Scheduled rides typically require more of a buffer between trips, and you absolutely can not fail to deliver on a scheduled ride since they’re important (airport trip, business meeting, etc).
This has always been the problem with Uber’s scheduled ride feature. Riders could schedule a ride up to 30 days in advance but there was no guarantee of ETA and price since Uber would merely initiate the request 10-15 minutes before your ride. You might as well just set an alarm on your phone ‘to call an Uber’ lol.
It wasn’t until recently that Uber launched a true scheduled ride product called Uber Reserve where drivers can see a list of scheduled rides and pick the ones they want. But of course, Uber has to pay drivers more for this, since a driver needs to clear their schedule for 20-30 minutes beforehand, and thus charge riders more. The problem is that in a high supply environment, Uber doesn’t always like to pass the margin on to the drivers, so they’ve actually reverted to last minute fulfillment of scheduled rides in some markets/instances.
So they can charge riders premium ‘scheduled’ pricing and still pay drivers regular rates and it usually works well because Uber’s marketplace is so liquid. They always have a driver available so who cares what type of car/driver it is, as long as it gets you where you want to go. That’s what you’re paying for with Uber scheduled rides, not a specific driver/car/etc.
But Waymo is a premium product that riders are willing to wait longer and pay more for. They will have lower utilization overall with scheduled rides but I think it’s a valuable tool that will let them:
Charge higher pricing
Prioritize Power Users
Build brand loyalty with a subscription program (the ‘ability’ to schedule 1-2 rides a month would be a great benefit!)
What do you think? Will scheduled rides help Waymo much in the long run or will the potential benefits be outweighed by the lower utilization?
-Harry