Not to be outdone by its Mountain View rival, Facebook is following Google’s lead in testing out a new water taxi service to carry employees from San Francisco to the Peninsula twice a week. Google just finished a 30-day test of a daily ferry service that used a luxurious charter boat to carry some of its workers from San Francisco to the Port of Redwood City, where they could hop a company shuttle bus to the Google complex in Mountain View.
All aboard the Facebook ferry. The social network launched a private ferry service last week that will shuttle employees between San Francisco and Redwood City, just a few miles from company headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the shuttle on Wednesday, which the company is calling a “water taxi.” Facebook plans to test the shuttle during a 90-day pilot period, at which point the company will reevaluate the service. The boat is a catamaran that holds 30 people, and comes equipped with perks such as Wi-Fi, coffee and snacks, according to the spokesperson. This isn’t the first time that a company has shuttled employees via water taxi. Google announcedits own commuter ferry in early January, and completed a 30-day pilot program last week. The company is now evaluating whether or not the service should come back later this year.