Alphabet owned autonomous driving company Waymo has resumed its ride hailing service in the San Francisco Bay Area after a brief suspension caused by a major power outage. The service restarted on Sunday, just a day after operations were halted to ensure safety during the disruption.
Waymo paused rides on Saturday evening after a fire at a PG and E substation knocked out electricity in about one third of San Francisco. The outage affected roughly 130,000 residents, disrupted traffic flow and forced several businesses to shut temporarily, creating difficult driving conditions across parts of the city.
The company said most trips that were already in progress at the time of the shutdown were completed without incident. After that, vehicles either returned safely to their depots or pulled over until conditions stabilized.
Waymo said it is reviewing the incident to improve how its technology responds to large scale disruptions like power outages. A company spokesperson noted that Waymo is committed to learning from the experience and maintaining public trust while improving how its self driving vehicles adapt to unusual traffic situations.