Driverless Shuttle Plan Continues To Idle

A driverless shuttle plan stalled in traffic yet again, as alders pushed back on a prospective pilot they worried presents too many potential liabilities for the city, and has not been thoroughly vetted by the communities through which the automated vans would navigate.

The scene of that legislative tie-up Tuesday was the latest virtual meeting of the Public Safety Committee of the Board of Alders.

Will the city get sued up the kazoo if one of its planned new driverless shuttles strikes a pedestrian or bicyclist? Local legislators asked.

Will the project truly cost the city zero dollars? Will it serve the public at large if the provisional route mimics the current shuttle between Yale’s two hospitals?

And why haven’t the city traffic mavens consulted the community management teams of the four or five wards (and their alders) through which the driverless vans will drive?

Convened over a teleconferencing app, the committee, after two hours of driving deeper into complex issues without resolution, voted unanimously to table the question at hand. That question is whether New Haven should participate in a state pilot program to test autonomous vehicles.

Instead, guided by the chairs, Quinnipiac Meadows’ Gerald Antunes and Beaver Hills’ Brian Wingate, they voted to table the matter, just as they had done in June when the very same questions of safety, equity, insurance, and community input had surfaced.

City Traffic, Transportation & Parking Director Doug Hausladen and Jonathan Garrett, a transportation consultant at Stamford-based Stantec who has been working with the city on its autonomous vehicle plan, once again pitched the program, this time hoping to receive a green light on the application process.

Whereas in June the committee tabled the item for a future public hearing, that is, the one that occurred Tuesday night, this time, with no participation at all from the public, they tabled it again for a future workshop (no public comment permitted), date to be determined.

Click here for an article on the previous hearing that covers in fuller detail the safety features, possible routes, and proposed benefits to the city of the participation in the state’s pilot program.

In June, one of the sticking points for the alders was community input. This issue has become especially sensitive as a driverless van that would add to the streets a new technology is poised to arrive at a time when old technologies, along with human drivers’ failures, don’t seem to be doing such a great job of keeping bicyclists and pedestrians from being hit.

On Tuesday, Antunes asked, ​“The area [that is, the proposed route)] goes through four wards. Any discussion with them?”

“Not nearly enough,” replied Hausladen, ​“I note the president’s [Tyisha Walker-Evans, president of the Board of Alders] ward is one of them.”

“It’d be helpful if you had some in depth conversation with them. They’re a critical part of this.”

“Yes, but we’re here to get your permission first.”

The potential giving of that permission Tuesday night, however, seemed to founder first on questions of insurance and indemnification. ​“First,” asked Antunes, ​“we need to know if someone [in the proposed arrangement, which involves the city, a consultant, a vendor, and an operator in a to-be-decided-upon legal partnership] will hold us [in a potential law suit] harmless. We need to know.”

City Assistant Corporation Counsel Kevin, Casini, who was in attendance, said, ​“It is important to know the agreement [that would be required by the city from the consultant, vendor, or operator holding the city harmless] won’t prevent litigation. If someone wants to sue, it’ll happen. We could be named as an insured in a policy. We could be in a hold-harmless clause by a company who comes in, but right now we are not a partner, so it’s hard to come up with a hypothetical about how to put the players together.”

Show Me The Money

Despite Hausladen’s repeated assertions that participation in the pilot would have zero fiscal impact, that is, all the funding of the pilot, once launched, would come from future partners and grants, the alders seemed skeptical about the city’s potential nickel.

While no vendor or operator is yet on board and therefore all costs are hypothetical, Hausladen said, the vice chair, Brian Wingate, pressed him: ​“Come on, Doug, how much will the vehicle cost?”

Hausladen replied that there is a range and that other cities doing similar programs have vehicle lease agreements ​“something like $12,000 to $30,000 per month depending on the services. We don’t have a service plan or number of vehicles (yet).”

Wingate: ​“Come on, Doug. Talk to me.”

Antunes: ​“Let’s keep it under control.”

Hausladen: ​“In other cities it is paid for by lease. What the city brings to the table is, if we are one of the four locations, is the expertise of our transportation department. We don’t necessarily need to bring dollars to pay for a pilot.” That is, operators or builders or other entities might want to try out their vehicles and systems in New Haven and pay for the privilege.

Antunes: ​“Bottom line is during the pilot there is no cost for the city of New Haven?”

Hausladen: ​“Yes. But I did hire Stantec because we’re not familiar with this. But the idea is to bring together the university and the hospital and their transportation operators, and CT Transit, those that want to partner with us [and they pay for the pilot] … the cost that we are bearing is a hard to quantify cost. We’re a center city that provides 60,000 jobs in our neighborhood,” and this project potentially will get many cars driven by those folks off the road.

“Our department’s position is that [since autonomous vehicle technology is definitely coming] private Teslas shouldn’t be running around. We want to be sought after by private companies.”

Back To Fear Of Being Sued

Downtown Alder Abby Roth needed more legal clarification about an indemnity clause that a vendor would have to sign. ​“Is that the same as a hold-harmless clause,” she asked

“They are not the same thing but the result is the same, shielded from having to pay,” replied Casini. ​“Hold harmless means they would step in if we were named a defendant. Hold harmless means they would pay. Ultimately it would be on whoever signed that agreement.”

Roth: ​“Do I understand that no private vendor would be accepted if they refused to sign an indemnity?”

Hausladen: ​“No vendor is allowed to launch without a contract signed by the mayor, and it contains a minimum framework met, and insurance is part of that framework.”

Jonathan Garret: ​“This is just for the option to participate [along with Stamford, Hartford, and Windsor Locks, which are the other three contemplating being part of the pilot]. If there’s interest, then we can find a vendor, come up with the costs that you asked about, Alder Wingate. All that will be approved in the deployment phase. This is just permission to start fundraising, [and exploring] and vendor commitment.”

West Rock Alder Honda Smith asked for assurance about who picks up costs for infrastructure modifications, if they are required by the project.

“We’re not committing to or proposing extra infrastructure [at this time],” he said. If a pilot project does launch and some additional infrastructure, hard or soft, is added and then the program is discontinued, Hausladen said that infrastructure could be left or could be taken back by the vendor. If there were striping, that, of course would remain. In the case of the bike share program, he added, the vendor left not only the bike racks, but the bicycles themselves.

The long conversation ended with skepticism about the route, which mimics the private van servicing Yale’s employees between the two hospital campuses. Roth wanted more information about the stops. She said that while the driverless van on paper should serve the public, how is the public going to avail itself if all the stops on the driverless route are simply the Yale hospital stops? How is the general public to know?

And Antunes was highly skeptical of one of the proposed routes that sent the slow moving A.V.s along fast-moving MLK Boulevard. ​“That route is not conducive to safety, even at low speed.” He wanted to be sure that should the city sign on for the pilot, the routes are not ​“locked in stone.”

Hausladen provided that reassurance.

In the end there was not enough of that commodity on hand to garner a green light vote. The unanimous motion to table and to continue the conversation in a workshop did not include a date for that workshop.

“We’ll establish that,” concluded Antunes, ​“in the near future.”