[AlotOfReading]

The public area is SF to Daly City. The employee-only area runs down the rest of the peninsula. Both of them together are the operational area.

Waymo's app only shows the areas accessible to you. Different users can have different accessible areas, though in the Bay area it's currently just the two divisions I'm aware of.

[riffraff]

Why would you consider the employee-only area? For that categorization to exist it must mean it's either unreliable for customers or too expensive cause there's too much human drivers on the loop. Either way it would not be considered as an area served by self driving, imo.

[AlotOfReading]

There are alternative possibilities, like "we don't have enough vehicles to serve this area appropriately" or "we don't have statistical power to ensure this area meets safety standards even though it looks fine", and "there are missing features (like freeways) that would make public service uncompetitive in this area" to simply "the CPUC hasn't approved a fare area expansion".

It's an area they're operating legally, so it's part of their operational area. It's not part of their public service area, which I'd call that instead.