Waymo’s self‑driving taxis spend almost half their time without a passenger, a new study shows.
The study, released Jan. 22 2025, examined 1.2 million miles of Waymo robotaxi operation in three U.S. cities. Researchers matched GPS logs to rider requests and found that 48% of driven miles were empty. They compared this to 1.5 million miles of traditional ride‑hailing in the same period, using the same empty‑mile metric. The methodology relied on third‑party traffic sensors to measure overall congestion changes.
The result matters because policymakers have counted on autonomous fleets to ease urban congestion. If robotaxis are idle nearly as often as regular taxis, the expected traffic relief evaporates. Cities may need to rethink incentives or require higher occupancy thresholds.
In other words, autonomous vehicles are not the traffic‑saving miracle some early forecasts promised.