Where the empty miles come from
A robotaxi drives empty between dropping one rider and reaching the next. California carriers file, per census tract, how many trips started and ended there — so the imbalance between the two maps where that empty repositioning is generated. It is the geography behind the deadhead ratio, a level of detail no operator publishes.
Los Angeles — trip origins against destinations
Each tract is shaded by the net between trips that ended there and trips that started there. Select a tract for both counts. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan.
Trip balance by census tract in Los Angeles
34 tracts carry a filed trip origin or destination. 29 trips originate across them. The 25 strongest at each end are listed here; a positive net means more trips arrive than depart.
Tracts that take in more trips than they send out
- Census tract 06037702900: 2 arriving, 0 departing, net +2.
- Census tract 06037271100: 1 arriving, 0 departing, net +1.
- Census tract 06037207902: 1 arriving, 0 departing, net +1.
- Census tract 06037212101: 1 arriving, 0 departing, net +1.
- Census tract 06037224010: 1 arriving, 0 departing, net +1.
- Census tract 06037702400: 1 arriving, 0 departing, net +1.
- Census tract 06037700400: 1 arriving, 0 departing, net +1.
- Census tract 06037278001: 1 arriving, 0 departing, net +1.
- Census tract 06037267901: 1 arriving, 0 departing, net +1.
- Census tract 06037231220: 1 arriving, 0 departing, net +1.
- Census tract 06037192300: 1 arriving, 1 departing, net +0.
- Census tract 06037206051: 1 arriving, 1 departing, net +0.
- Census tract 06037238200: 1 arriving, 1 departing, net +0.
- Census tract 06037189300: 2 arriving, 2 departing, net +0.
- Census tract 06037270200: 2 arriving, 2 departing, net +0.
- Census tract 06037216800: 1 arriving, 1 departing, net +0.
- Census tract 06037271300: 1 arriving, 1 departing, net +0.
Tracts that send out more trips than they take in
- Census tract 06037189102: 2 departing, 0 arriving, net -2.
- Census tract 06037267600: 2 departing, 0 arriving, net -2.
- Census tract 06037274100: 1 departing, 0 arriving, net -1.
- Census tract 06037267700: 1 departing, 0 arriving, net -1.
- Census tract 06037236400: 1 departing, 0 arriving, net -1.
- Census tract 06037269906: 2 departing, 1 arriving, net -1.
- Census tract 06037222700: 1 departing, 0 arriving, net -1.
- Census tract 06037700300: 1 departing, 0 arriving, net -1.
- Census tract 06037278102: 1 departing, 0 arriving, net -1.
- Census tract 06037212502: 1 departing, 1 arriving, net 0.
- Census tract 06037194101: 1 departing, 1 arriving, net 0.
- Census tract 06037207711: 1 departing, 1 arriving, net 0.
- Census tract 06037214100: 1 departing, 1 arriving, net 0.
- Census tract 06037265602: 1 departing, 1 arriving, net 0.
- Census tract 06037270101: 1 departing, 1 arriving, net 0.
- Census tract 06037275604: 1 departing, 1 arriving, net 0.
- Census tract 06037621001: 1 departing, 1 arriving, net 0.
Why an origin-destination map is a deadhead map
What the imbalance actually tells you.
Every trip has to be balanced by the fleet: a vehicle that ends a trip in one tract has to get to wherever the next trip begins. When a tract takes in far more trips than it sends out — a downtown at close of business, an airport, a stadium — the vehicles that arrive there have to leave empty to find their next rider. That empty leg is deadhead, and this map shows the tracts that generate it.
The figure it grounds is the deadhead ratio: the share of all driving that carries no passenger. That page says how much of the driving is empty; this one says where the emptiness is produced. Only the metros with a tract-level trip filing appear here — Waymo files origin and destination counts for its densest service areas and redacts them elsewhere, so the map is a window, not the whole picture.