San Francisco has formally asked state regulators to reconduct an August hearing that expanded robotaxi permits for Cruise and Waymo, giving both companies permission to expand commercial operations in the city 24/7.
The controversial decision was met with strong opposition, as city agencies and residents questioned the far-reaching impact of the expansions. The permits offer no restrictions on geographic area, hours of service or fleet size, something opponents say could lead to an unlimited number of robotaxis roaming the streets. There is also no requirement that Cruise or Waymo report incidents where the robot axis malfunctions and ‘stalls’ in traffic, blocking the flow of other road users, public transport and first responders.
SF City Attorney David Chiu filed the request on behalf of city transportation and planning officials. Chiu had also requested a temporary halt to the expansions days after the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) hearing, but the agency never responded. The city’s applications, filed Monday, reiterate the request for a temporary pause.
“These vehicles may be able to drive themselves, but they cannot regulate themselves,” Chiu said in a statement. “The CPUC must do that to protect passenger safety and public safety. Since the CPUC’s decision to allow unfettered expansion of AVs for commercial passenger service in San Francisco, AVs have continued to pose safety risks and hinder first responders.”
Chiu urged the CPUC to reconsider its decision, accusing the agency of using a flawed approval process and ignoring the public safety hazards and potential environmental impacts of AVs.
“AV technology has a place in San Francisco, but we are concerned that it cannot yet function safely in our complex transportation environment,” Chiu continued.
The primary role of the CPUC is to promote the public interest by providing safe, reliable, and affordable utility services. As long as Cruise and Waymo’s services meet these requirements, the CPUC has no authority to restrict them. The agency voted in favor of permit extensions in August because it did not expect robotaxi services to pose significant safety risks.
Both Cruise and Waymo vehicles have been involved in collisions, but so far no human has been killed as a result of those collisions and injuries have been minimal. That said, in the aftermath of the CPUC hearing, a cruise vehicle was involved in an accident with a fire truck, in which one passenger was injured. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has ordered Cruise to immediately reduce its fleet by 50% while it investigates “recent incidents.”
Most of the other “concerning incidents” in recent times (and in the past year) have primarily involved cruise vehicles bricked up in the middle of a public road. On August 16, 10 Cruise robotaxis stopped, causing a gridlock in North Beach for about 20 minutes during one of the city’s largest music festivals.
Cruise’s public backlash came to a head in early September after a San Francisco Fire Department report accused a Cruise robotaxi of blocking an ambulance carrying a passenger who later died, an accusation Cruise denied. Demonstrators gathered outside Cruise’s headquarters last week in protest. TechCrunch reviewed the footage and confirmed that Cruise did not interfere with the ambulance’s movements. The fire department later made it clear that Cruise was not at fault.
However, the damage to Cruise’s reputation had already been done and the incident painted a grim picture of what could happen if a Cruise vehicle were to brick up an ambulance on, say, a one-way street with minimal space for the ambulance to drive around it. .
“The companies are not required to report – or even detect – such significant incidents and interference events,” the city attorney’s request reads. “As a result, analysis of these incidents in San Francisco relies entirely on casual reports from citizens and affected city employees.”
Cruise and Waymo shared some data at an August meeting with city and CPUC stakeholders to address concerns before the agency’s vote. According to Cruise’s data, from January 1 to July 18, 2023, there were 177 “vehicle pick-up events,” which are examples of a bricked-up Cruise robotaxi that needs to be picked up by a human. The average resolution time was 14 minutes.
Waymo’s data shows that 58 retrieval events occurred between January 1 and June 30, 2023, with an average resolution of 10 minutes.
City officials said these events are only a subset of the total number of unexpected stops. Between April 2022 and April 2023, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) collected a total of 261 incidents involving a cruise vehicle and 85 involving a Waymo. These incidents include multiple types of driving behavior, including unexpected stops, erratic driving, pick-up and drop-off issues, and collisions.
The City Attorney’s Office requests that the CPUC not only adopt new reporting requirements for AV companies, but that these reports be made public without redaction. These reports should collect data on monthly driver and driverless miles traveled by county, street interference incidents, all crashes and high-risk violations. The request also asks the CPUC to consider ensuring that AV expansion is granted in an incremental, performance-based manner so that it does not generate “widespread new hazards to travelers and the general public.”
“The CPUC’s decision was the result of a months-long process that included public input and support from accessibility groups, labor unions and community advocates – culminating in a six-hour public comment period in which the majority supported expanded AV access,” said Navideh Forghani. , a spokesperson for Cruise, told TechCrunch. “It is unfortunate to see the city use public resources to circumvent that decision and restrict a technology with an excellent safety record used by tens of thousands of SF residents.”
“We fully support the CPUC’s informed decision to allow Waymo to charge fees for driverless rides,” said Waymo spokesperson Katherine Barna. “We will monitor this development closely, and in the meantime, we will continue to work with the City of San Francisco in constructive ways while providing safe and accessible mobility to San Franciscans.”