Transit rewards (Waymo pays you to take the train)

dcrazy

Meanwhile, the 47 Muni bus that connects the Van Ness transit corridor to Caltrain has been “suspended” since 2020, and the extension of Caltrain to the transit center is still unfunded. I appreciate solutions that meet us where we are, but it’s depressing that we don’t seem to actually have the will to make a sustainable, integrated mass transit plan.

novia

Waymo pays you $2.85 in Waymo credit to take the train (Waymo takes $2.85 off your next ride if you take the train) I live in East Bay, and I often take gratuitous Waymo trips all the way across the city to Embarcadero Station to ride BART back home. I do this because I like seeing the pretty skyscrapers and the bustling city and the pretty townhomes painted interesting colors. They may want to rethink their reward structure a bit to avoid paying out to people like me.

lokar

I would really like a full door to door with one payment. Put in the destination, one price and get a Waymo on each end. React as best as possible to delays, etc.

kelnos

Ugh, looks like this only works if you pay for the Waymo with a Visa card, and also use that same Visa card to pay for transit. I don't use a credit card for transit in SF; I use my Clipper transit card. I get that integrating with the Clipper system is a lot more difficult, but... c'mon.

Lammy

> Public transit networks and shared autonomous vehicles are part of a complementary mobility ecosystem. As transit agencies modernize their payment systems to accept tap-to-pay debit and credit cards, multimodal trips are becoming more convenient than ever. What a tonal shift immediately after the intro paragraph. I have to wonder how many times this went back and forth with PR and Legal to end up with this particular wording and to be the very first thing they stress after the basic facts. Especially the word ‘shared’ in ‘shared autonomous vehicles’ to connect people's thinking to ‘public’ transit. They even make sure to repeat the word ‘shared’ back to back to back in each of the final three paragraphs to make sure you end with that idea in mind. Yet all the cars are owned by Waymo and aren't ‘shared’ like the train and bus fleets which are owned by transit districts that I can vote on. Translation: Waymo would like to learn how to prioritize their fleet of privately-owned vehicles, like where to have empty cars circling, where to expect them to be sent, and via what routes to send them, in order to replace the transit portion of the trip for as many riders as possible. Who wouldn't choose a single door-to-door trip over a transfer if the wait time is low and if the dollar cost of the private Waymo ride can be set approximately equal to the invisible ‘price’ people assign to the value of their time. And just in case a reader doesn't pick up on that stuff, they directly tell you how to feel by quoting their very unbiased business partner: > “San José has always believed innovation should make everyday life work better,” said San José Mayor Matt Mahan. “This partnership does exactly that by using new technology to strengthen public transit, not replace it, making regional travel more seamless and giving people more ways to get where they need to go.” Fun fact: Waymo pay $4 to the San José Department of Airports for every pick-up or drop-off at SJC. Widespread Waymo usage probably wouldn't “replace” the public transit routes we have now, sure, but it would remove the public's shared will to vote for transit expansions that could replace the Waymo portion of people's “““multimodal trips in a complementary mobility ecosystem””” (lmfao) instead of the other way around. > When riders in the SF Bay Area use their Visa card to take a Waymo trip and public transit within 2 hours of each other, we will automatically issue $2.85 in Waymo Cash, which is the cost of a bus fare in San Francisco. Great ‘anchoring’ technique in this wording too, to make people feel like $2.85 is getting them something tangible instead of being a pittance to pay for this type of hyper-personal behavior data.

raz32dust

Nice idea. But too many ifs and buts, and it's too little to really change habits. Besides, waymo's main issue seems to be supply right now. I can never get one when I need it. I wish the government would rather invest in better public last mile connectivity programs or higher frequency trains and buses.

HaloZero

It seems odd that they want you to pay for transit with your visa. That excludes a lot of travelers who might have passes on their transit cards. Less common in the Bay since all our transit providers are different but I used to pay monthly for the Muni + Local BART pass all the time when I lived in SF.

ripvanwinkle

Why would they do it. Is it for marketing ?