AASHTO Journal - Michigan DOT Podcast Delves into Robotaxi Deployment

A recent episode of the “Talking Michigan Transportation” podcast produced by the Michigan Department of Transportation discusses federal-level efforts to expedite the deployment of “robotaxis,” which are autonomous vehicles operated by ridesharing companies.

[Above photo via Amazon]

This episode interviews Joann Muller, who writes the Axios Future of Mobility newsletter, about her recent reporting on Amazon’s Zoox (pronounced “zooks”) robotaxis. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration recently granted a temporary exemption to commercially deploy up to 2,500 robotaxis annually for two years.

All of this comes as Waymo, Uber, and other companies are making investments in the rapidly evolving automated vehicle industry to try and bring more robotaxi services to the U.S. market.

Muller explained that federal regulators are right now “trying to very rapidly clear out a lot of rules that were written years, even decades ago” regarding motor vehicle safety.

“The idea here is if you have a car that doesn’t have a human in it, why do you need side view mirrors? Why do you need windshield wipers? Why do you need a steering wheel or brake pedals?” she said. “And, so, they’re like basically modernizing the rule book for the modern [autonomous] car, which doesn’t have a driver, though they’re still requiring that the stopping distance still has to be the same.”

Muller also discussed what she called the “underappreciated importance” of the human remote monitors for robotaxis. “These are people who are sitting in an office somewhere and, when a robotaxi gets into trouble, pings this office,” Muller explained.

“At that point, the human gets engaged through cameras and through other technology to figure out what’s happening and they sort of [figure out] here’s the alternate route [the vehicle] should take,” she said. “They are not taking control of the vehicle remotely; that is definitely not happening. But we’re not appreciating how important these people are and how many of them we probably need to oversee these [robotaxi] fleets as they grow.”

To listen to the full episode, click here.