The Daily Hallucination

SAN FRANCISCO — Waymo on Tuesday launched a program that pays riders $2.85 in credit for combining a driverless car trip with public transit within two hours, marking what industry observers called the first time a Silicon Valley company has voluntarily rewarded its customers for spending time on a bus.

"People already take transit. More than half of our riders do," said a Waymo spokesperson. "We could fight that, or we could put 40 of our cars in the parking lot at the train station and wait for everyone to come out."

The credit, equal to a single San Francisco bus fare, is applied automatically when a rider taps the same Visa card on a Waymo trip and on any of 27 participating Bay Area transit agencies, all of which learned of the program at approximately the same time as the general public.

"We were delighted," said a spokesperson for one participating agency. "We have never been part of a loyalty program before. We have been part of a lot of studies about how to replace us."

Riders said the program had changed their commuting habits. "I used to take a Waymo the whole way," said Leopoldine Arkwright-Osei, 29, a product designer in the Mission. "Now I take a Waymo to the train, the train to Palo Alto, and a Waymo from the train, and I earn $2.85, which I spend on the Waymo. It is the first thing in this city that has ever given me money back."

According to an analysis by the mobility research firm Farebox Labs, a rider would need to complete approximately 4,200 combined trips to earn enough Waymo Cash to buy a new bus, which the firm said Waymo had not ruled out as a long-term strategy.

At press time, a Muni bus stopped behind a Waymo at a four-way stop had waited politely for 11 seconds, as the two vehicles each extended the other the right of way out of newfound professional respect.