Waymo, the self-driving automated car company that has been showing up more and more across the country, and Waze, a satellite navigation software company, are partnering to combine their data to fill in potholes across the country.
Last week, the two companies announced a joint partnership with five cities — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta — in leveraging the capabilities of both companies to locate these potholes and in turn, aid the respective cities with a holistic map of where these potholes exist.
Both companies are subsidiaries of parent company Alphabet Inc., which owns Google.
The pilot run will use Waymo “perception and physical feedback systems,” according to a press release, to provide the latest information about the potholes.
The City of Atlanta’s Department of Transportation’s latest publicly shared data on their website reports that nearly 4000 potholes were repaired in 2021. Residents are able to report potholes via Atlanta’s ATL311 service portal, which handles non-emergency inquiries. Today, the potholes are then patched through Atlanta’s “Pothole Posse,” a program which first originated under mayor Shirley Franklin’s administration in the early 2000s.
The five, two-person teams can fill up to 150 potholes a day according to an interview from 11Alive.
Potholes being largely driver-reported to cities to fix is part of the reason for this pilot project, according to Waymo.
“This constituent-driven model of road maintenance provides cities with an incomplete picture of road health that can make it difficult to allocate maintenance resources equitably. This pilot program, based on feedback gathered from city officials over the years, is intended to help fill reporting gaps and support cities’ efforts to maintain safer streets,” reads that same press release.
Already, the Waymo and Waze pilot reports that it has identified over 500 potholes across the five pilot cities. With a successful pilot run, the companies then hope to expand the program to other cities — especially colder ones with “harsh freeze-thaw cycles” that can exacerbate pothole occurrences.
This story will be updated if Waymo or the City of Atlanta’s Department of Transportation return a request for comment.
