Today, Waymo is excited to announce our transit rewards program, which we will initially offer in the San Francisco Bay Area, with future cities to follow. This first-of-its-kind initiative rewards riders with Waymo Cash when they connect their Waymo rides with public transit and use their Visa card. We’ll start with employee access before gradually rolling out to the public in the coming weeks.
Public transit networks and shared autonomous vehicles are part of a complementary mobility ecosystem. As transit agencies modernize their payment systems to accept tap-to-pay debit and credit cards, multimodal trips are becoming more convenient than ever.
"Governor Newsom has challenged all of us to build a transportation system that meets Californians where they are, and that means making the trip to the station as effortless as the train ride itself," said California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin. "CalSTA welcomes innovations that reward people for choosing transit and make a multimodal trip feel like one seamless journey."
Recent surveys show that over 50% of Waymo riders in our most mature service areas (San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix) use public transit, so we’re proud to invest directly in this connectivity to make everyday commutes easier and more affordable. The transit rewards program works alongside the regional transfer discount programs and tap-to-pay model launched in the San Francisco Bay Area last December. The program applies to all 27 San Francisco Bay Area transit agencies that accept contactless Visa tap-to-pay.
“San José has always believed innovation should make everyday life work better,” said San José Mayor Matt Mahan. “This partnership does exactly that by using new technology to strengthen public transit, not replace it, making regional travel more seamless and giving people more ways to get where they need to go.”
To participate, riders will link their Visa card in the Waymo app. When riders in the SF Bay Area use their Visa card to take a Waymo trip and public transit within 2 hours of each other, we will automatically issue $2.85 in Waymo Cash, which is the cost of a bus fare in San Francisco.
Alongside the launch of our transit rewards program, we’re also announcing a partnership with Caltrain, which accepts tap-to-pay. Waymo will lease 40 dedicated Caltrain station parking spaces to better serve transit riders with staged vehicles. This is a model we hope to replicate with additional transit agencies, ultimately enabling more seamless connections between Waymo’s service and public transit.
This launch is the next step toward making our vision of shared mobility a reality. By taking the learnings from our transit credit pilot programs in San Francisco and Los Angeles, adding Waymo’s service to the LA Metro Mobility Wallet program, and kicking off a strategic microtransit partnership with Via in Chandler, AZ, we’ve been steadily learning what it takes to offer a successful transit integration product and are pleased to formally launch transit rewards.
“Shared mobility is a team effort, and our autonomous ride-hailing service helps expand clean transportation options for everyone,” said Adam Lenz, Head of Sustainability & Environment at Waymo. “We’re thrilled to partner with local transit agencies to fill multimodal gaps and make daily commutes easier through our new transit rewards program.”
Our goal is to expand this transit rewards program and transit agency partnerships to more cities over time, ultimately making shared, all-electric transportation more accessible and affordable for everyone.