Recently, I had my first Waymo ride. A friend suggested I try it while I’m on a short vacation in the Phoenix, AZ area. I saw dozens of Waymo vehicles whizzing by. Initially, I felt some trepidation, but after visiting their website and getting some encouragement from a close friend, I decided to give this new mode of transport a try. I stepped to the curb near my accommodation and opened the Waymo app on my phone. About eight minutes later, a sleek white Jaguar pulled up alongside me. I allowed the app to connect to the car via Bluetooth, and soon enough, the door handle popped up. I opened the car door and took my seat in the rear. The car’s programming provided instructions on securely fastening my seatbelt. After pressing the “Start Ride” button on the rear console, we set off on our twelve-mile journey to the Franciscan retreat center in Scottsdale. I took another Waymo on the way back to my accommodations.
Waymo is a commercial enterprise, and while it is not open source, its foundations were shaped by an open research culture. Waymo’s roots date back to DARPA and the early part of this century, with Google’s self-driving car project, which began in 2009. Waymo contributes to the field of machine learning with its open dataset. The Waymo Open Dataset enhances open-source ecosystems and open knowledge by offering one of the world’s largest and highest-quality autonomous driving datasets. It allows researchers, developers, and educators to build, benchmark, and innovate without being hindered by proprietary restrictions. This dataset promotes advancements in perception, motion prediction, and end-to-end driving research, and its permissive licensing fosters widespread reuse in both academic and industrial settings. Collecting autonomous vehicle data is expensive. Open datasets democratize access. The Waymo Open Data Set is licensed under Apache-2.0.
My first Waymo ride left me with more than just a convenient trip across Phoenix—it offered a glimpse into how decades of research, experimentation, and open collaboration have shaped today’s autonomous‑driving landscape. Sitting in that quiet Jaguar, watching it navigate traffic with calm precision, I felt connected to a lineage that stretches from DARPA’s early robotics challenges to Google’s pioneering self‑driving project and now to Waymo’s commercial service. What impressed me most was realizing how much of this progress has been fueled not only by private innovation but also by the open exchange of knowledge. Waymo’s decision to release its high‑quality dataset under a permissive license continues that tradition, empowering researchers and developers everywhere to push the field forward. As I stepped out of the vehicle at the end of my ride, I felt a renewed appreciation for how far autonomous technology has come—and how openness, collaboration, and shared curiosity continue to drive it into the future.