Waymo

[stopcrazypp]

SFMTA says taxis are allowed in the lanes.

Muni Tips for Using Transit Lanes

[VIDEO::https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXbqzE05d7Q&list=PLyfL5t4sxkylzFawoR5tW_XCnSgaKNdtc&index=1::aVideoStyle] You can enter transit lanes to turn at most intersections and drivewaysLook for the dashed red area to see where a good place is to enter the lane. Make sure this area is clear. Then...

www.sfmta.com

Waymos are taxis.

Waymos are not taxis (they don't have taxi medallions), so like Uber and Lyft, they are not allowed on Bus/Taxi lanes (other than to make turns or to get to a parking spot as your linked article pointed out).

However that specific lane on Van Ness is Not a Bus/Taxi shared transit lane. Transit lanes are marked explicitly to allow taxis also:

The one the Waymo drove on and made an illegal left turn is a dedicated bus lane. Taxis are not allowed in that lane (nor are cars allowed at all, even for turns). In fact there are barriers to separate it.

They are marked as "Muni GGT Only" which are the SF Muni Buses and Golden Gate Transit (GGT which crosses Golden Gate Bridge to Marin county) respectively. So they are limited even to those two agencies (other busses like tour busses are not allowed in those lanes).

Van Ness Improvement Project

Welcome to the New Van Ness Avenue!The new Van Ness Avenue is here! Major upgrades have been made on Van Ness Avenue and we’re excited to introduce you to our eye-catching red lanes, new landscaping and other improvements that make Van Ness Avenue the place to live, visit and work. This massive...

www.sfmta.com

 

[Daniel in SD]

Waymos are not taxis (they don't have taxi medallions), so like Uber and Lyft, they are not allowed on Bus/Taxi lanes (other than to make turns or to get to a parking spot as your linked article pointed out).

However that specific lane on Van Ness is Not a Bus/Taxi shared transit lane. Transit lanes are marked explicitly to allow taxis also:

The one the Waymo drove on and made an illegal left turn is a dedicated bus lane. Taxis are not allowed in that lane (nor are cars allowed at all, even for turns). In fact there are barriers to separate it.

They are marked as "Muni GGT Only" which are the SF Muni Buses and Golden Gate Transit (GGT which crosses Golden Gate Bridge to Marin county) respectively. So they are limited even to those two agencies (other busses like tour busses are not allowed in those lanes).

Van Ness Improvement Project

Welcome to the New Van Ness Avenue!The new Van Ness Avenue is here! Major upgrades have been made on Van Ness Avenue and we’re excited to introduce you to our eye-catching red lanes, new landscaping and other improvements that make Van Ness Avenue the place to live, visit and work. This massive...

www.sfmta.com

Interesting. Hopefully Waymo will explain.
I suspect that Waymo thinks they are allowed in transit lanes but did not program in this exception.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Interesting. Hopefully Waymo will explain.
I suspect that Waymo thinks they are allowed in transit lanes but did not program in this exception.

But that doesn't explain the left turn. That section of Van Ness didn't allow left turns even prior to the bus lane project and the bus lanes opened for service in April 2022, so it's not like the lanes are a new thing either. They are equivalent to light rail tracks so if they didn't program or map that in, that's a major fail.

 

[Daniel in SD]

But that doesn't explain the left turn. That section of Van Ness didn't allow left turns even prior to the bus lane project and the bus lanes opened for service in April 2022, so it's not like the lanes are a new thing either. They are equivalent to light rail tracks so if they didn't program or map that in, that's a major fail.

There is a signal there for a protected left turn. It’s too bad we’ll probably never get an explanation. Would be interesting to see how they screwed it up. My guess is that it’s a mapping error but it does seem like it must be recent even though nothing on the street has changed.

 

[MP3Mike]

There is a signal there for a protected left turn.

Huh? Are we looking at the same thing? The signal I see there is a green through arrow, nothing for a left turn.

My guess is that it’s a mapping error but it does seem like it must be recent even though nothing on the street has changed.

Why must it be recent? Because we haven't seen reports? I suspect that there are a lot more things like this happening that either nobody sees, or nobody has a camera running for. (Even most Waymo passengers may be too busy on their phone/laptop/etc. to notice what the Waymo is doing.)

 

[stopcrazypp]

There is a signal there for a protected left turn. It’s too bad we’ll probably never get an explanation. Would be interesting to see how they screwed it up. My guess is that it’s a mapping error but it does seem like it must be recent even though nothing on the street has changed.

That's a forward signal, not a left turn signal. It says very clearly no left or u-turns except Muni. Here's the specific intersection at Van Ness and Post. There is transit turn signal (which consists of a red line and white line; light rail and cable cars use the same type of signal), but that does not apply to cars. There is also a Do Not Enter Except Muni & GGT sign for the lanes.

If you go back in history for the street view to prior to the bus lanes being installed, you can see it has "no left turn" signs, so this is not a new thing at all. When you route with any standard navigation (even my old GPS unit from a decade ago) or Google maps it will not tell you to do a left turn there.

Van Ness Ave & Post St · San Francisco, CA 94109

Intersection

www.google.com

 

[Daniel in SD]

That's a forward signal, not a left turn signal. It says very clearly no left or u-turns except Muni. Here's the specific intersection at Van Ness and Post. There is bus turn signal (which consists of a red line and white line), but that does not apply to cars. There is also a Do Not Enter Except Muni & GGT sign for the lanes.

Interesting. It does seem like it must have been specifically programmed to turn there. I doubt it turns left at normal no left turn signs (otherwise we’d see video of that since they’re much more common than no left turn except for specific vehicles)

 

[Doggydogworld]

But that doesn't explain the left turn. That section of Van Ness didn't allow left turns even prior to the bus lane project and the bus lanes opened for service in April 2022, so it's not like the lanes are a new thing either. They are equivalent to light rail tracks so if they didn't program or map that in, that's a major fail.

It would explain the left turn if Waymo's programmers mistakenly defined a general rule that "taxis get to do what buses do and we're a taxi, so.....".

This sudden rash of blatant traffic violations is pretty disturbing. I do wish Waymo would cut the corpspeak for a while and actually explain what's going on.

 

[Daniel in SD]

More evidence Waymo is cranking up the temperature on the neural nets these days (assuming this is new).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788054903988138043

It does seem like we're seeing a lot more Waymo fails than we used to. I assume it's because they're doing way more miles.

 

[diplomat33]

It does seem like we're seeing a lot more Waymo fails than we used to. I assume it's because they're doing way more miles.

Yes, I think the increase in the number of fails is just statistical because we are seeing more miles. Waymo is doing millions of driverless miles now. It is inevitable that there would be some fails in that number of miles. Also, as I mentioned before, since Waymo is driverless that means there is no safety driver to hide the fails. So, with Waymo, we are seeing the autonomous driving do its thing on its own, out in the open, good and bad.

 

[diplomat33]

More evidence Waymo is cranking up the temperature on the neural nets these days (assuming this is new).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788054903988138043

That is a pretty crazy move. Waymo performed it safely but I am not sure it was wise though. Ideally, I think you want to drive in a predictable way for other drivers. So if you start to make a right turn, you should complete the right turn as expected, not suddenly make a left turn in the middle of the intersection when the oncoming traffic has a green light to go.

But I agree, I think we are seeing Waymo really crank up the ML planner and deprioritize the HD map rules. Waymo wants the cars to rely more on the ML planner to "think" through edge cases so that they get stuck less and rely less on remote assistance. As crazy as this move was, I think it might be on purpose. I think this move might be in response to previous edge cases where the Waymo would get stuck. If we think back to previous cases, a Waymo would have tried to complete the initial turn and then stalled in the intersection when it sees that the road is blocked or something. Now, the ML planner sees that the initial turn was undesirable and can reroute on the fly. So the Waymo did not get stuck in the intersection.

Having said, hopefully, Waymo fine tunes the ML more. Being assertive and being adaptable to changing road conditions is good but breaking traffic rules is not ok. So hopefully, Waymo trains the ML to find that middle ground.

 

[diplomat33]

Impressive video of Waymo responding to hand gestures from traffic officer fully autonomously (no remote assistance confirmed by Waymo).

https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1cmr4tn/waymo_instantly_reacts_to_hand_signals_from

 

[diplomat33]

 

[MP3Mike]

I think we are seeing Waymo really crank up the ML planner and deprioritize the HD map rules. Waymo wants the cars to rely more on the ML planner to "think" through edge cases so that they get stuck less and rely less on remote assistance.

Almost like they might have figured out that requiring up-to-date/accurate HD maps isn't scalable...

 

[Bitdepth]

How Waymo operates autonomously in the Depot. Basically, the cars go back to the depot to wait autonomously and leave when called for a pickup. Most of the depot operations like parking to charge are autonomous as well. Pretty detailed video that’s never been shown before of waymo operations.

 

[diplomat33]

How Waymo operates autonomously in the Depot. Basically, the cars go back to the depot to wait autonomously and leave when called for a pickup. Most of the depot operations like parking to charge are autonomous as well. Pretty detailed video that’s never been shown before of waymo operations.

That is super cool to get a glimpse of the behind the scenes. It is also sort of "magical" to see these fully driverless cars come back to the depot when they are done, wait and then drive off when summoned again to pick up a rider. It seems like most of that is automated.

 

[Bitdepth]

That is super cool to get a glimpse of the behind the scenes. It is also sort of "magical" to see these fully driverless cars come back to the depot when they are done, wait and then drive off when summoned again to pick up a rider. It seems like most of that is automated.

Yea a lot of people seem to think robo taxi is just driving but there is an infrastructure and logistics behind the service itself that needs to be solved.

What impressed me the most was how very little time between when you request a car to when one is dispatched out by the dispatcher which I assume is also automated. I imagine all sorts of data is taken into consideration like state of charge and distance to the pickup and drop off location.

 

[Doggydogworld]

More evidence Waymo is cranking up the temperature on the neural nets these days (assuming this is new).

Is that a guy in a construction vest on the right? I wonder if there is off-camera construction down that street? Hard to tell what's going on here without more context.

 

[EVNow]

More evidence Waymo is cranking up the temperature on the neural nets these days (assuming this is new).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788054903988138043

It does seem like we're seeing a lot more Waymo fails than we used to. I assume it's because they're doing way more miles.

Or that’s because their failure rate has gone up (or both). I don’t think we have any hard date to backup any of these possibilities.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Or that’s because their failure rate has gone up (or both). I don’t think we have any hard date to backup any of these possibilities.

Looks like their collisions are about the same. 71 in 2022, 50 in 2023 and 14 (x3 = 42) so far this year. Though I didn’t look to see if how many are with a safety driver driving (safety drivers seem to get in dumb low speed collisions).