Defanging Driverless Cars

August 1, 2018

Stephen Baker

Through the early months of 2018, failures of autonomous vehicles dominated the news. In March, a self-driving car operated by Uber killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. Weeks later, a Tesla customer’s car, running on its semi-autonomous autopilot mode, crashed into a guardrail south of San Francisco, killing the driver.

These tragedies fueled already-lingering doubts about the coming generation of automated vehicles. According to surveys by the American Automobile Association, the percentage of Americans “too scared” to ride in fully autonomous cars climbed nearly 16% in the first four months of 2018, from 63% to 73%. At the same time, the public was hearing steady reports that autonomous vehicles (AVs) were poised to eliminate millions of jobs. Americans, it appeared, didn’t like what they were learning about the auto industry’s autonomy roadmap.

For city and state officials in Tampa, this trend in public opinion threatened to undermine a promising technology that could spur economic development, cut pollution and commute times and enhance road safety. While recognizing that safety issues for AVs are paramount — and needed to be addressed — they also hoped the public in west Florida could appreciate the technology’s potential.

The answer, they decided: Give the general public an up-close look at AVs, even a chance to ride in one. “You have to get people to see it, to experience, to get them into the cars,” said State Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-Pinellas).

Brandes collaborated with the Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) and SAE International to organize a three-day event for the public to test-ride an AV. Perrone Robotics, of Corzet, Virginia, provided an SAE Level 4 automated car for the demonstration; THEA arranged to close the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway’s reversible express lanes between morning and evening rush hours. Amid a vigorous publicity campaign for the event in the press, TV and social media, the passenger slots quickly filled and the waiting list ballooned to 180 names.

SAE concocted surveys for the test riders before and after their experience with Perrone’s self-driving car. And THEA turned much of its headquarters into an educational space, where participants enjoyed “after-ride” chats with experts and other opportunities to continue the experience.

“In order to truly realize the potential for these vehicles, we have to build public knowledge about how safe they are and what they do,” said SAE chief product officer Frank Menchaca. “We need to develop a vocabulary nationwide for understanding the safety of automated vehicles so that the manufacturers and government can work together to develop this technology that has such potentially immense benefit for society.”

To develop smart policies for the next generation of transportation, said Joe Waggoner, chief executive of THEA, the region needs an engaged and informed citizenry. “And self-driving cars,” he predicts, “will be here much sooner than many people think.”

Florida as smart-mobility leader

Sen. Brandes maintains that the coming wave of technology represents a strategic opportunity for Tampa and the rest of Florida. The metro areas that pioneer the adoption of sensors and robotics, he asserted, will attract investments and next-generation jobs. And he predicts that area residents will benefit from quicker commutes and, potentially, a dramatic drop in highway deaths. To this end, he pushed legislation in 2012 opening up Florida roads and highways to self-driving cars. He calls it “the most forward-looking legislation in the country for AVs.”

For Tampa, the arrival of AVs continues a trend already underway. The city is one of three sites for a federally-funded pilot in connected-vehicle technology. This involves equipping streetcars, buses and the vehicles of 1,500 volunteers to interactively communicate with each other and the infrastructure, including sensors in street lights and “smart” highway barriers. This will provide a torrent of minute-by-minute data, which should help transit authorities optimize traffic flows, reducing pollution and congestion.

As 260 Tampa residents visited the THEA head-quarters to experience their first-ever ride in an AV, they also learned about the Connected Vehicle pilot and how the two technologies are related; intelligent infrastructure promises to ease the transition to automated vehicles over the coming decade. “If you put sensors in the environment, the car doesn’t have to do everything on its own,” says MacCallister Higgins, co-founder of the AV mobility startup Voyage, who was on hand at the Tampa event to answer questions.

Early adopters

Those signing on for SAE’s Tampa AV demonstration, it was clear, tilted toward receptive tech enthusiasts (logically enough, few who were genuinely apprehensive about AVs could be expected to be among the first to give one a try in an all-new program).

Riders were shuttled a few hundred yards to the empty stretch of Tampa expressway. When they climbed into the AV, a Perrone official, behind the wheel as a safety backup, led them on a two-mile course in which the car did the driving. He explained how the AV interpreted sensor information about the surrounding conditions to identify and avoid a stationary car — or later, come to a stop on its own when a pedestrian crossed its path.

Returning from the test drives, the passengers gave their opinions to a host of local and national reporters and television crews. Randall Carter, 61, a financial advisor, said the technology could improve the lives of the elderly. “I think this will help with my mother, who’s not able to drive anymore.”

Elaine Lund, who works in historic preservation in the city, said she was eager to reduce her 40-minute commute. “This might decrease the level of stress,” she said, pointing to the automated car in which she just rode.

Although one demonstration program won’t dispel apprehension about the coming generation of AVs, the people of Tampa got a chance to hear — from the news, social media and a few hundred of their neighbors — that the experience was not distressing.

“People are terrified for the first minute, interested for the next five — and then bored,” said Sen. Brandes. And given this year’s rash of disquieting news, perhaps the public’s most reassuring takeaway from SAE’s groundbreaking Tampa event is that autonomous travel can indeed be boring.

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