San Francisco Mayor calls for tougher laws after Waymo traffic fiasco

It turns out that even San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who once declared that the city should be a testing ground for emerging technologies, has his limits. Especially when that emerging technology creates hours-long traffic jams that leave thousands at a standstill.

Mayor Lurie called on state regulators to tighten regulations on autonomous vehicles nearly two weeks after Waymo’s robot axis stalled in July 4th traffic jams, lost power, blocked highways and caused a grid shutdown. Traffic jams, which have blocked municipal transport, have become a city-wide problem affecting thousands of people.

In his letter to the state Department of Transportation, which was viewed by TechCrunch, Lurie pointed to two incidents — a widespread power outage in December and the Golden Gate Bridge fireworks display on July 4 that attracted 100,000 spectators — that both resulted in thousands of Waymo vehicles being stranded and traffic snarled. The San Francisco Chronicle first reported on the book.

The incidents, he said in the letter, “have shown that California’s current regulatory framework does not adequately address how autonomous vehicles operate during major events, planned or not. The challenge for California now is not only whether autonomous vehicles can operate safely under normal conditions, but also whether they can operate reliably during extraordinary events.”

Lurie said autonomous vehicle manufacturers must be able to demonstrate four “basic operational skills” and called on the California Department of Transportation to establish statewide standards to prevent future problems like the July 4 incident.

Under Lurie’s vision, companies will need to quickly remove or relocate robots from active transit routes to keep people moving and will need to be able to adapt in real time, adjusting their routes, service area, and pickup and drop-off locations. Companies will also have to share real-time performance data with local agencies, including service disruptions, stationary robot locations, and rescue efforts and demonstrate through testing that they can handle large influxes of people and traffic.

TechCrunch has reached out to Waymo for comment. The article will be updated once the company has responded.

Any company that wants to use a robot service in California must successfully navigate two approval processes for testing and deployment, one controlled by the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the other by the Public Utilities Commission. California’s current regulatory framework is stricter than other states like Texas and Arizona, but that hasn’t stopped companies from trying to operate there.

San Francisco and the wider area that stretches south into Silicon Valley have long been a testing ground for autonomous vehicle technology. Six companies, including Nuro, Waymo, and Zoox, have test driver licenses, which allow cars to drive without a human safety operator behind the wheel.

But the site has also become a commercial service launch site, which requires additional permits from the DMV and the CPUC.

Waymo is huge, with about 1,000 robots operating in the Bay Area today. But there are a number of others testing or ready to launch commercial operations, including Amazon-owned Zoox and Uber’s flagship robotics service. Tesla has a eponymous robotaxi service but does not operate self-driving cars, and is not licensed to do so. Instead, Tesla has a leased transportation permit, which allows its drivers to pick up and drop off passengers throughout San Francisco in vehicles equipped with its advanced driver assistance system rather than fully autonomous software.

Waymo’s scale has made it a hotbed of regulators in San Francisco, and beyond. The company now operates in 11 cities and says it completes more than 500,000 paid rides every week. In San Francisco, Lurie noted that Waymo had agreed to limit its service on July 4 near the waterfront and even assigned a representative to the city’s emergency services. But that was not enough to stop Waymos from traffic jams outside that region.

Lurie said these voluntary actions are no longer enough — it’s an indication of how large Waymo’s fleet has become. He said the four proposed requirements “will not undermine autonomous vehicles; they will strengthen them.”