Policy Progress for Autonomous Trucking Relies on Putting People First
Emily Warren joins Embark as Head of Public Policy as the company continues its collaboration with policymakers in preparation for commercial deployment.
The most important lesson I’ve learned from my 18 years in transportation policy is that underneath the buzzwords, this industry isn’t about vehicles, infrastructure, or even movement — it’s about people. The purpose of mobility is to improve people’s lives by connecting them to things they need, people and places they love, and economic opportunity.
The rules governing transportation businesses exist to help and protect people, too. Regulators hold companies accountable on critical issues like safety, sustainability, and labor relations that directly affect daily life. I joined Embark because I believe autonomous trucking can improve millions of lives — and because I know the industry will only achieve that potential if we work with policymakers and the public to design regulatory frameworks that put people first.
Embark has prioritized a collaborative, transparent approach to policy engagement since our earliest days. My predecessor – current Head of Corporate Affairs Jonny Morris – was one of the company’s first employees, embedding a focus on the public interest in Embark’s culture from the start.
Delivering for Customers Drives Policy Success
I’ve seen firsthand what it takes to develop public trust in pioneering mobility technologies. For the last decade, I’ve worked at the nexus of government and Silicon Valley to forge policy pathways that bring new transportation categories to market. As part of the original Lyft team, I helped grow the ridehailing industry from its infancy. I built multiple departments focused on community and policy engagement, working with policymakers and broad coalitions to secure groundbreaking regulations allowing Lyft to expand nationwide.
At Lyft, we succeeded in changing the policy landscape rapidly because our platform made life better for people — riders who lacked access to reliable mobility and drivers who needed a flexible way to earn income. These grassroots voices were our greatest policy advocates, teaching me that focusing on customer needs is essential to gain regulatory approval for novel products and industries. Policymakers rarely change laws for the pure sake of innovation; new technologies earn their legitimacy through the benefits they offer the public.
Transparency Earns Trust
Another necessary ingredient to winning policy support for new forms of transportation is transparency. Lyft had vocal detractors, but many of their criticisms were based on misapprehensions about the way our platform operated. Rather than avoiding such debates, I embraced candid dialogue, working with stakeholders and researchers to study and expand understanding of Lyft’s technology and its impacts. We didn’t always reach agreement, but our company’s honest engagement earned trust and respect.
I saw the value of transparency again when I joined Lime in 2018 to lead the policy team as the company scaled its micromobility platform from a few small markets to hundreds of cities globally. Customer enthusiasm for electric scooters was high — but cities were fatigued from years of mobility startups popping up on their streets making claims of public benefit. The key to our expansion was to partner closely with city transportation officials, consulting them before launching and sharing standardized data that validated our impact claims and documented our performance. Following this approach, my team developed policymaker and industry consensus to enable our hypergrowth, swiftly passing dozens of new municipal permit rules and state legislative changes that secured a lasting presence for micromobility in the urban landscape.
Building Ladders of Opportunity
From passenger transportation to goods movement, the purpose of transportation is to make connections between people and places. But mobility is also one of the largest employment sectors, engaging talent from all skill levels and geographies. Major transportation innovations bring shifts to the workforce and spur intense dialogue about labor impact. This debate is healthy and pushes industry to keep a human focus front and center. The most successful companies are those who use their technologies to create new opportunities that improve life not just for customers, but for workers.
Offering new forms of economic opportunity was key to the rise of passenger mobility innovations like ridehailing and micromobility. It also powered the unprecedented logistics success of Amazon. I joined Amazon’s public policy team in 2021, at a moment when e-commerce was newly indispensable to Americans living in a global pandemic. Despite a rapidly tightening labor market causing hiring shortages for many companies, Amazon’s workforce grew and thrived, enabling the company to scale to meet customer needs. They attracted and retained talent by offering comprehensive benefits, including education programs teaching frontline employees new professional and vocational skills, preparing them to access emerging job categories inside or outside the company.
Every employer must constantly listen to its workers and elevate the employee experience based on their feedback. This is one of the greatest opportunities for autonomous trucking to improve people’s lives for the better. If our industry works in partnership with the trucking workforce in the transition to automation, we can develop new career paths offering growth potential and improved quality of life.
Crafting a People-Powered Path for Autonomous Trucking
‣Delivering meaningful benefits for customers and engaging their voices in the policy process.
‣Earning trust with regulators through transparency and candid dialogue.
‣Creating jobs that empower workers to improve their livelihoods and access career ladders to the future.
I believe policy progress for new transportation technologies is built on these humanistic foundations.
I joined Embark to forge a collaborative pathway to policy consensus and commercialization for autonomous trucks, based on these guiding principles. Working in partnership with regulators, customers, workers, and the public, we can deliver this technology’s true potential to improve people’s lives through the safer, more efficient, more sustainable movement of goods through the global supply chain.
