When Bringing AV Stakeholders to the Table, Make Sure You Have Enough Chairs
Earlier this month, Sidewalk Labs brought urbanists and technologists together to discuss the role of cities in shaping an autonomous-vehicle future. The conversation was rich with insight, but for me, the biggest takeaway of the evening was that the stakeholders in a potentially driverless future are extremely diverse, and the prioritization of one group’s goals could make it more difficult to address those of another.
During the panel discussion that kicked off the event, Dee Williams, of the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy Implementation Team at the DOT, had a laser focus on the safety outcomes of an AV transition. She repeatedly cited the recent uptick in U.S. traffic fatalities and the fact that 94% are caused by human error as reason enough to push forward with AV policy development. Naturally, Andrew Salzberg of Uber focused more on the efficiency and convenience that a shared AV platform could bring to cities.
The roboticist Hod Lipson of Columbia University took the stance that the technology is not a major concern anymore — “how good is good enough?” he asked — and that developing policy guidelines and safety metrics that the public can understand are bigger areas of need. Christine Berthet of the pedestrian safety group CHEKPEDS seemed mostly concerned with the interface between the AV world (which could include taxis, delivery trucks, personal vehicles, and other unmanned movers of goods) and the pedestrian one — a boundary she referred to simply as “the curb.”
In the small group discussion afterward, a somewhat controversial question was raised: Would an emphasis on safety above all other urban policy and planning concerns actually diminish the overall benefit that AVs bring to urban life? As an urban technologist who is most interested in how the physical form of cities adapts to a driverless future, it’s tempting to say yes.
The reasons might be various: Excessive spending on testing and regulation could prohibit cities from integrating AVs in a way that benefits other urban systems (like public transit, open space, parking and land use). Or perhaps, as Lipson suggested, we accept AVs as they are today — an imperfect technology that is nevertheless a safety improvement over human drivers — and see them proliferate in private and shared fleets while urbanists are stuck in a perpetual game of catch-up, trying to unlock maximum value from AVs at the city scale.
Either way, it’s clear that even among the most vigorous supporters of an AV future, there are still many important conversations to be had.
Reference:
Sidewalk Talk: What’s the City’s Role in Autonomous Vehicles? (2016, November 17). Lecture presented atSidewalk Labs, New York.
