Waymo said on 14 October that anyone in San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa can now hail a fully autonomous ride through its app, without waiting for an invitation. The change includes rides at San Antonio International Airport. Waymo says it has served hundreds of thousands of riders in the three cities since opening service there earlier this year.
San Diego and Tampa welcomed their first public riders on 1 September, when Waymo said tens of thousands of people in each city had already signed up and that access would widen step by step. That launch took its driverless service to 14 cities. Six weeks on, those two cities and San Antonio have moved from a managed rollout to open access. Waymo’s announcement carries supporting comments from local officials and advocates on airport access, mobility for older people and independence for people with vision loss.
Why it matters: dropping the waitlist is the point at which a robotaxi service meets unfiltered demand, which makes it a sterner test of fleet size and reliability than a controlled rollout. It also shows how quickly Waymo is now moving new cities from first riders to open service.
Source: Waymo, 14 October 2026