Automotive industry regulators, in the United States in particular, are seeking to remove regulatory restrictions on the development and testing of autonomous vehicles without compromising job No. 1 — safety.
 
"There is widespread recognition that automated vehicles will coexist with conventional vehicles and ad some point operate side-by-side with them on the highways," said Nicole Nason, administrator of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), one of several government speakers at the Automated Vehicles Symposium held in Orlando in July.
 
"And to this point, I want to affirm the department's position this morning regarding freedom of the open road. We want to protect the freedom of all Americans to make mobility choices that best serve their needs," she said at the event, cosponsored by AUVSI and the Transportation Research Board.
 
The Department of Transportation updated its automated vehicle guidance last fall to the 3.0 version, which provides guidance on technology development and managing safety risks and "clarifies roles to avoid the conflicting patchwork of regulations that hamper innovation and provide best practices."
 
The latest version reaffirms statements from earlier versions that the DOT will prioritize safety, remain technologically neutral — that is, it won't specify any particular technology or system — and will modernize regulations, including by getting rid of current ones that may be outdated.
 
The guidance notes that going forward, DOT will interpret the words driver and operator "to recognize that such terms do not refer exclusively to a human, but may in fact include an automated system."
 
AV 3.0 expands its look at automated vehicles to include commercial vehicles and infrastructure and reaffirms the previous direction that the DOT will rely on a self-certification approach, rather than vehicle type approval, as a way to "balance and promote safety and innovation," and will push this approach to the international community.
 
It also says the DOT will continue to work to preserve the ability of transportation safety applications to function in the 5.9 GHz spectrum, something that was mentioned by every government speaker at AVS 2019.
 
Spectrum squabble
 
The 5.9 GHz band has traditionally been reserved for vehicle-to-vehicle communication, but the Federal Communications Commission has for years been eyeing part of it for other uses, including faster wi-fi. 
 
"I believe that the time has come for the FCC to take a fresh look at this band," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said In a speech at the Wi-Fi World Congress in Virginia in May. "We should open up a rulemaking proceeding, seek comment on various proposals for the band’s future, and use the record that we compile to make a final decision on how the band should be allocated."
 
He noted the band has been reserved for vehicular communications and maybe that should still be the case, but added, "I am quite skeptical that this is a good idea."
 
Instead, Pai said the spectrum could be shared between vehicle-to-vehicle uses and unlicensed devices such as cell phones and internet providers, some of it could be reserved for V-to-V communications, "or we could allocate the entire 75 MHz band exclusively for unlicensed use. Making the right choice won’t be easy."
 
Transportation speakers at Automated Vehicles Symposium said the spectrum needs to be available for automated vehicles.
 
"The department wants to ensure there is sufficient bandwidth for automated vehicles to operate," Nason said. "The 5.9 Ghz band is of "critical importance to us" to reduce crashes, injuries and fatalities — "that's why we call it the safety band."
 
Ray Martinez, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which regulates commercial trucking, echoed that point when he spoke on Thursday.
 
"We must ensure that the use of the safety band is protected," he said. "We believe that is critical."
 
The band is used for vehicle-to-vehicle communication, pedestrian detection, traffic monitoring, travel alerts, and much more, she said.
 
"The safety band is at the heart of our efforts to make these new AV technologies interoperable," Nason said. "All of these systems ... must work seamlessly together."
 
Finch Fulton, the deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy, noted that every DOT speaker at the symposium highlighted the importance of the spectrum and said Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao is personally involved in the issue.
 
"I can tell you, if that gives you a lot of comfort, you're not understanding what we're saying," Fulton said. "... Every bit of the 70 MHz of the spectrum we're talking about is being used throughout the country in deployments today, but as we look toward the future of this spectrum and as we think through the connected technologies and the efficiency and all the benefits it can bring, we do have to work with the FCC." 
 
If rulemaking opens up at the FCC, he said, transportation stakeholders who believe in reserving it for safety uses need to speak up, as the voice of the DOT won't be enough.
 
"The call to action is for you to pay attention at what's happening at the FCC and make your voices heard if you truly believe that the safety spectrum needs to be used for these purposes going forward," Fulton said.
 
However, in the AV 3.0 document, the DOT noted it is working on a pilot program with the FCC on a test plan to share the spectrum as long as it maintains priority use for vehicle safety communications.
 
Seeking input
 
Meanwhile, the DOT and its departments are seeking to reduce regulations on automated vehicles, such as by updating the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for the first time in a decade.
 
"We will be asking for public input later this year," Nason said. "The updated version will reflect advances in technology over the past decade and support the operation of AVs. So, I really want to stress — if you're interested, you need to comment. We read every comment. It's been a decade since we've updated it."
 
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are also seeking comment on a proposal to remove some regulatory barriers to the development of automated systems. Martinez said this is part of the DOT's overall approach to automated technology. 
 
"We're not coming in here with a heavy hand. ... we are coming to listen and we're coming with an invitation" to talk to the government, he said. "This is not going to be a top-down environment."
 
As part of its outreach, last year FHWA conducted a series of six workshops on AV integration with transportation stakeholders around the country.
 
"... Safety was the main takeaway of all the workshops," Nason said. "It will be critical to not only ensure safety when AVs are fully deployed, but also while they're in the process of reaching full deployment, especially during the testing and verification period."
 
FHWA has its own multi-modal research program, the Cooperative Automation Research Mobility Application (Carma) platform, an open-source platform that "is trying to accelerate cooperative driving automation" by blending communication technology with AV functionality.
 
It has two components, Carma Platform and Carma Cloud. The platform lets automated vehicles communicate with smart infrastructure through Carma Cloud. It was made available as open-source software last year "and today we are launching an updated version of it."
 
"Carma's goal is to accelerate understanding of the benefits of cooperative automation by testing shared maneuvers such as vehicle platooning, speed harmonization, cooperative lane change and merge functions, [and] coordination of signalized intersections." 
 
She noted that competitors are teaming to solve problems together, "and I think that's the only way we will achieve success."
 
Legislation 'inevitable'
 
Congress has considered weighing in on the burgeoning autonomous vehicle industry but failed to pass legislation last year. 
 
The House of Representatives went first, passing the Self Drive Act in the fall of 2017. The Senate companion piece was the American Vision for Safer Transportation Through Advancement of Revolutionary Technologies (AV START) ACT.
 
"The legislation built on our existing regulatory framework to prioritize safety while also removing unintentional barriers to innovation in existing law, " said Cheri Pascoe, senior professional staff member and investigator for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
 
"And that balance between safety and innovation is key part if you are to allow innovation to continue to thrive while also ensuring the technology is safe and reliable," said Pascoe, 
who led that bill's development, speaking at Automated Vehicles Symposium 2019.
 
As with the recent DOT moves, the legislation would have removed references to human drivers in some instances and leaned on industry to self-regulate and publicly report on safety data. 
 
"Overall, we've all had to force ourselves to think beyond the traditional 20th Century conception and regulation of a car. Yet that remains a huge challenge for many," and the legislation was not approved, with the government shutdown not helping.
 
Most bills don't become law, and "AV Start Act and Self Drive got closer than most," she said. "They also represented a rare glimpse of bipartisanship in Congress."
 
The legislation had a wide base of support, including from consumer advocates and disability advocates, but some highly publicized negative incidents didn't help, "and some are struggling with the basic premise that we should be advancing automated vehicles."
 
Congress can't be counted out, Pascoe said, because "as long as AVs are inevitable, I believe federal legislation is inevitable."

Above: EasyMile's self-driving shuttle, which conducted demonstrations at Automated Vehicles Symposium 2019. Below: Nicole Nason, administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, said the DOT wants to protect the freedom of Americans "to make mobility choices." Photos: AUVSI