Californians took more than 1.2 million rides in commercial self-driving cars in December, a 500% increase in 19 months, according to the Public Utilities Commission.
The autonomous vehicle market, which grew from fewer than 200,000 rides statewide in May 2024, was outlined at a conference on the future of the technology in San Francisco on Friday.
The annual Autonomous Vehicles and the City Symposium showed how policymakers and regulatory agencies are confronting new problems that arise from the rapidly growing industry.
AVs have the potential to reduce traffic deaths because they remove the problem of human error, said Adetokunbo Omishakin, the state Secretary of Transportation. California had about 4,000 traffic fatalities in 2023, according to the state Office of Traffic Safety.
“A big responsibility for us is to drive those fatality numbers,” Omishakin said. “Our hope is to reduce the fatality numbers by 30% by reducing crashes caused by human error, AVs hold a powerful potential for saving life.”
AVs also may play a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the future of automated public transit systems.
“If we’re going to be able to achieve those goals, it’s going to continue to take technology to help us,” Omishakin said. “All of these benefits are possible with AVs, but it will take strong partnership and governance and an active commitment to shape the trajectory of this technology into the future.”
Balancing regulation and innovation
The theme of this year’s symposium focused on the challenges of adopting new policies and regulations while not stifling innovation in the AV industry.
“We need to make sure that we are having good regulation to protect public safety and to benefit the public without strangling technology and without putting requirements on AVs that are not possible to meet,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco.
Still, the AI technology in AVs is not at the level where it can be fully automated. In December, for instance, a large-scale power blackout in San Francisco caused traffic jams as Waymo cars were unable to operate.
“There are circumstances in which humans, human help will be really needed and in fact necessary,” said Melody Drummond Hansen, former chief counsel for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. “We thought humans were dangerous, but it turns out that we’ve had all of these recent experiences, whether it’s in the PG&E instance, or it’s in an instance where you’re interrupting an emergency situation.”
One of the issues that is being addressed through legislation is AV interactions with first responders. There have been instances of AVs obstructing emergency responses and getting pulled over for traffic violations.
AB 1777, which goes into effect in July, requires all AVs to have a remote operator who can be contacted through a two-way communication system equipped in the vehicles.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles “will be adopting finalizing regulations to implement that law in July, and this is an important first step,” Wiener said.
Unattended kids and cars
Other issues under discussion by policymakers include whether to implement age restrictions for minors riding alone in AVs.
“There’s a lot of debate amongst regulators, stakeholders, people in the industry, about whether it’s appropriate to have a child alone in an autonomous vehicle and a commercial autonomous vehicle,” said Rachel Swan, a local news reporter and moderator for one of the speaker panels.
Drummond Hansen suggested that minors should have the ability to use AVs since they are allowed to take other modes of transit unaccompanied.
“We let kids ride the bus by themselves. We let them ride BART by themselves. There are all of these other areas where we handle unaccompanied minors.”
Melody Drummond Hansen, former chief counsel for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
“We let kids ride the bus by themselves. We let them ride BART by themselves,” she said. “There are all of these other areas where we handle unaccompanied minors.”
The future of AVs and public transit is also in flux.
In San Jose, there is a project underway with the company Glydways to introduce a driverless fleet of vehicles that will connect riders from Diridon Station to San Jose Mineta International Airport.
“I’m actually pretty hopeful about the potential for this,” Omishakin said. “In my opinion, we have to start exploring more and more solutions like this and how it can be incorporated into the broader public transportation system.”
Coexisting with public transit
Megan Neese, Head of Insights at Waymo, said most autonomous vehicle projects want to be an added element to existing public transit instead of replacing it.
“Our goal is to try to integrate and complement high-capacity transit,” Neese said. “We do see that Waymo riders do that now.”
“There are people who are of the view that public transportation is obsolete, that AVs are going to eclipse it,” Wiener said. “That is false, and AVs can complement public transportation.”
Speakers agreed that the Bay Area will continue to be a testing ground for adapting to the issues that arise out of the rapidly growing technology.
“We are so often on the lead,” Wiener said. “Sometimes that creates tensions and can create some temporary challenges, but in the end, we get to a better place.”
