California lets autonomous taxi companies charge for rides

On November 19, tThe California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has announced that it will now allow autonomous taxi companies to bill for their services statewide.. California already had the country’s strictest standards for AV operators, and the new Driverless Autonomous Vehicle Implementation Program and Driverless Autonomous Vehicle Implementation Program will require more paperwork. of these companies if you want to operate in the cities of your choice, but can take your own taxi in Los Angeles and drive down Hollywood Blvd. in the next few months.

According to the CPUC, companies participating in autonomous vehicle programs will be required to submit a large amount of information to the agency on a quarterly basis, including data on “pick-up and drop-off locations for individual trips; the availability and volume of wheelchair accessible trips; levels of service to disadvantaged communities; the type of fuel used by vehicles and the electrical load; the miles traveled by the vehicle and the miles traveled by passengers; and engagement with accessibility advocates and disadvantaged communities.

The CPUC has issued autonomous vehicle pilot permits for seven different companies since June 2019—Permits that allow companies to put 100% autonomous vehicles into circulation. But until now, these permits were only for testing purposes, not for consumer services. Among the companies holding audiovisual licenses is Aurora Innovation, a start-up that could buy Uber’s autonomous vehicle division

. The other is Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle division.

Waymo currently operates out of Phoenix, AZ. Lyft, Aptiv, and Motional and have been operating self-driving cars in Las Vegas, NV for several years now. Our own editor for consumer tech, Alex Cranz, started one in Las Vegas a few years ago at CES. “It was very slow. I was nervous, ”she told me about her experience. I imagine a lot of California pilots will have the same experience once the opportunity presents itself. available in mass, including myself. The technology is great, but I trust myself to navigate the busy streets a lot more than I trust a computer. And forget about taking a driverless car ride on the interstate, especially in Southern California!

Even though self-driving cars could ultimately change the industry, I fail to see how self-driving vehicles that still require a driver present would be useful during the current pandemic. And while the CPUC’s reporting guidelines take into account accessibility issues and disadvantaged communities, there is no guarantee that these communities are better served by private companies than a reliable and well-established public transport network. Making cities more accessible on foot, public transportation more accessible, and reducing the devastating traffic that clogs major highways at all times of the day helps everyone, not just a certain demographic.

Metrolink, the southern California commuter rail network, has slowly grown to fill public transportation gaps in the Los Angeles area in recent years, as the introduction of its bike sharing system in 2016 and the extension of Line E (formerly Expo Line) from Culver City to Santa Monica in 2015. several major expansion projects currently under development, such as very necessary D line expansion (purple)But outside of the immediate Los Angeles area, public rail transportation is almost non-existent in Southern California.; Besides Metrolink and Amtrak, the only “last mile” public transportation service in Orange County is the OCTA bus system. It is the same in San Bernardino County, better known as Interior empire.

Like Los Angeles, much of Orange County and the Inland Empire still relies heavily on carpooling or personal vehicles, as it often takes longer to get to your destination by public transit. If you don’t have a car, you’re a little screwed up. Sure, ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft can fill these gaps, but these have their own issues. i.e. whether or not these companies operate their own controllers, by placing it trust in a robot taxi. How? ‘Or’ What The sun points out that no one form of transportation will solve California’s traffic problems, but investing in new infrastructure like the Redlands Passenger Rail Project (arrow), will do a better job of making transportation accessible to everyone, while reducing traffic and emissions, which ridesharing services do not sufficiently address currently.