What's the future of Waymo in Minnesota? Lawmakers consider regulations for self-driving taxis

NINA MOINI: Waymo, the autonomous taxi business, has been testing its vehicles in Minnesota since last fall. Both House and Senate committees will discuss regulations they could place on these self-driving taxi services, like Waymo, during hearings tomorrow. Here to chat about what the future of Waymo in Minnesota could be is Frank Douma. He researches autonomous vehicle policy at the University of Minnesota. Thanks so much for your time this afternoon, Frank.

FRANK DOUMA: Hello. Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: I just recently learned all about Waymos and these self-driving cars. I feel like it's something that a lot of people in our area may not know as much about. Perhaps people on the coasts have been in them or learned more about them. But what regulations are you seeing suggested in some of these bills that you think are the first types of regulations that the state should really be looking into? Because it seems like there's really nothing so far in terms of regulation.

FRANK DOUMA: Well, there is some regulation, and a majority of states actually in the US have enacted legislation specifically addressing some of the questions that come from a self-driving vehicle. So there's a fair amount of information out there that the state can draw from. The first state to actually enact anything was Nevada in 2011, and California followed shortly thereafter.

NINA MOINI: So what are you seeing as kind of a starting point when something like this does begin in the state of Minnesota? Where do you think that lawmakers should begin?

FRANK DOUMA: Yeah. So the state has actually had a council that was appointed by the governor, first under Dayton, and then Governor Walz has renewed it, to look at some of these questions. And so they've got recommendations that are already out there for the legislature to start with. And it's everything from do we have a proper definition of a person or a driver? So that would apply to questions of insurance and liability and whether local governments-- what they can regulate versus what the state should regulate. And the federal government has a role as well.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, I'm reading here that one of these House bills would establish requirements for operations, insurance, regulations for transportation services. An advisory board is being suggested in the Senate to study the impact of these commercial autonomous vehicles. In other states where there's more of a foundation being built, how do you see this working out, or what do you think people's biggest concerns are around this? Is it that they are not going to be safe or is it that they're going to take jobs away from other types of services, like Uber and Lyft drivers? What are some of the concerns you hear about?

FRANK DOUMA: Yeah, there's an array of concerns as well as advantages that can come with these vehicles. It's everything from people just being a little fearful of losing control. Not having a human in the vehicle, it's a little off putting unless you realize that anytime you get into an airplane, the pilot is really only engaged during takeoff and landing. But it's also things like what data is being collected about me? Who knows where I'm starting this trip and ending it and when? There are questions of how a service like Waymo would compete with Uber and Lyft.

But these technologies can also be used in more transit or paratransit type operations. It's a very similar technology that's currently being used by Southwest Transit and then by a company, a group called goMARTI up in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. So there's a lot of different ways to apply this technology. And what it does is it creates more ways for people who can't drive to be able to get from where they are to where they want to be.

NINA MOINI: Have you heard any concerns specifically about climate when discussing some of these autonomous vehicles? Obviously it's colder. There's snow to factor in here in Minnesota, other types of severe weather. Has that come up in your research?

FRANK DOUMA: Yeah, I mean, in terms of policy and so forth, it's not quite as significant, because it's really a question of technology for how the technology handles snow and ice and so forth. Several weeks ago, I saw my first Waymo here in Minnesota in the midst of a reasonably heavy snow flurry, but nothing really exciting. I was coming back from some travels myself this weekend. Otherwise, I would have been very curious to see if Waymo was out testing their vehicles in really heavy snow and seeing how they'd operate. But my own flight was canceled due to that weather, so I wouldn't blame them for not trying to operate in weather like that either.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and I don't how closely you're keeping an eye on these bills, but do you think that Minnesota would begin to enact stricter or more lenient sorts of regulations around this? I don't know if you would base that off of programs or actions in the past. Or is there a comparison beginning there for you?

FRANK DOUMA: Yeah, for the most part, it's kind of a balance. There's these things called uniform laws that have also been proposed that could apply, any state could adopt. And so they're useful suggestions. And one is offered by the industry. Another was offered by a bunch of lawyers and law professors and engineers who thought that they would be able to be a little more independent. And you can see the difference in those bills.

And you can see the interests of the industry in the uniform law they've proposed, and you can see the power of the market and the power of the politics based upon how large the state is. California, which has, I think, about a quarter of all registered drivers in the United States, as well as the headquarters of these companies, was able to be very, very strict in what they put forward.

Other states that were a little more eager to make sure they didn't lose the opportunity to have the vehicles there were much more lenient and willing to work with the industry. Minnesota is not a huge market, so they don't have that kind of leverage. But on the other hand, Minnesota is a leader in working with the transportation network companies, Uber and Lyft and their drivers, to be able to make sure that that is a way that someone can make a decent living. And so the opportunity for Minnesota to incorporate the interests of T&C drivers and so forth into their legislation and to create a level playing field as that part of the transportation industry continues to evolve is, I think, one area where Minnesota could be unique.

NINA MOINI: Oh, that's interesting. So you're saying some of the past few years, the conversations at the state capital around wages and the cost of living for different T&C or Uber and Lyft, those type of services, drivers could have attracted some of this attention to the area. But do you think, overall, Frank, that this is sort of it's not an if but when? I'm trying to think-- I know you're in the transportation studies area. I'm trying to think about if 10 years down the road, are none of us going to be driving our own vehicles? I'm just trying to understand how fast all of this may unfold, as I'm sure many of our listeners are.

FRANK DOUMA: Yeah, there's one person, a professor at the University of North Carolina Law School named Bryant Walker Smith, who's looked at this all the way back to the 1920s. And basically, he says that self-driving vehicles have been 20 years away for the last 80 years. So you can find videos from General Motors and so forth pointing out that by 1960, we'll have cars driving themselves.

So this is taking its time and evolving, to put it lightly. But nevertheless, the technology continues to improve, and the ability to make our transportation more accessible and safer is something that I think generally just becomes a compelling reason to allow these technologies to be something that we put into our transportation system.

NINA MOINI: Do you think there are still a lot of concerns around safety, or have people started to take the industry's word for it? They're talking about a possible advisory council, and I'm wondering if that's the type of thing that they would look into on a state level, or if everybody is just assuming this will be safe.

FRANK DOUMA: Well, I wouldn't say they're assuming it, but there has been a council for 10 years already that's been looking at some of these questions. There also have been studies that show that as humans, we're just not very good drivers.

NINA MOINI: [LAUGHS] Hey!

FRANK DOUMA: And so there's opportunity for the technology to come in and not be distracted and to be able to give warnings and to be able to even be held to a higher standard. And indeed, we see that with aircraft and so forth. The safety measures for flying by air are much better than people who are driving themselves.

NINA MOINI: Just lastly, Frank, say these bills were passed and signed by the governor and everything kind of began to spring into action. How long realistically do you think it would be before Waymo would be a part of everyday life? I'm thinking about other rollouts over the course of history, talking about cannabis or other things that have been rolled out throughout the state. And, I mean, it can take years and sometimes there are delays. Have you seen that play out in other states and how long does that take?

FRANK DOUMA: It's taking its time. Certainly places where you do have companies like Waymo operating vehicles without drivers and similar, like in California and parts of Texas and so forth, they currently are kind of operating as another transportation network company. It's another kind of taxi service. It's not taking over very quickly.

Now, as the safety advantages, as those numbers become better known and so forth, it may be that insurance companies are going to start offering better rates than if you've got a human driver. I don't know. I haven't seen numbers like that. The projection is that it will be an order of magnitude safer. And at that point, we might see the cost advantages and so forth become so significant that people become more confident and want to take advantage of it, but haven't seen that happen yet. It's more like just another way to compete and a way for people to get around if they can't drive because of physical ability or age or whatever.

NINA MOINI: Fascinating. Thank you so much, Frank, for stopping by Minnesota Now and telling us more about this. The future. It's on the way. Thank you so much.

FRANK DOUMA: Yeah, thank you.

NINA MOINI: Frank Douma is a research scholar at the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota.