Autonomous navigation in the real world: lessons learned from the PG&E outage
At Waymo, our commitment to being the world's most trusted driver is unwavering. We understand that trust is a cornerstone of our relationship with the community, built through consistent, reliable behavior over time. This past weekend, as a widespread PG&E outage plunged San Francisco into darkness, our service faced an unprecedented challenge. With power restored, we're sharing our experience and the steps we're taking to enhance our operations and better serve the city.
The scale of the outage and the resulting gridlock were unprecedented. With nearly one-third of San Francisco's traffic signals out of commission, the city ground to a halt. The congestion was so severe that the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management advised residents to stay home, highlighting the extraordinary nature of the weekend's disruptions.
This event presented a unique test for our autonomous technology. While the Waymo Driver is designed to handle dark signals as four-way stops, it occasionally requests confirmation to ensure the safest choice. On Saturday, we successfully navigated over 7,000 dark signals, but the outage triggered a concentrated spike in these requests, causing a backlog. In some cases, this led to response delays, exacerbating the already congested streets.
Our confirmation protocols, established during early deployment, are now being refined to match our current scale. While effective during smaller outages, we're implementing fleet-wide updates that provide the Driver with specific power outage context, enabling more decisive navigation.
As the outage persisted, City officials urged residents to stay off the streets to prioritize first responders. We temporarily paused our service in the area, directing our fleet to pull over and park appropriately to avoid adding to the congestion and obstructing emergency vehicles during the peak recovery efforts.
Looking ahead, we're taking several immediate steps:
- Integrating outage information: We're enhancing our fleet's ability to handle regional outages, allowing more decisive navigation through intersections.
- Updating emergency preparedness: We're improving our emergency response protocols, incorporating lessons from this event. In San Francisco, we'll collaborate with Mayor Lurie's team to enhance existing emergency preparedness plans.
- Expanding first responder engagement: We've trained over 25,000 first responders globally, and we'll continue updating this training based on our experiences.
Despite the challenges, we remain committed to making our streets safer. As residents and visitors of San Francisco, we're grateful for the city's first responders and Mayor Lurie's leadership. With over 100 million miles of fully autonomous driving experience and a proven track record of improving road safety, we're ready to challenge the status quo and continue serving San Franciscans.
