Good morning.

I want to thank everyone for coming out today.

We do everything that we can to start on time.

We have our presenters here today.

I welcome you to the meeting of the council's transportation and air and airport committee meeting.

We um meet once each quarter, but um also will meet as necessary.

I want to thank our presenters for being on time.

Um we don't have a quorum.

If one other member walks in, we'll officially call the meeting to order, but we can certainly go through the presentations verbally.

So at this time uh we have Ms.

Attorney Ashley Becknell, the executive counsel for the New Orleans City Council, um, she'll be presenting on for the members of the public, national trends and autonomous vehicle regulation, the legal landscape regarding for higher autonomous vehicles, ongoing Raymo testing in New Orleans, and potential legislation moving forward to protect citizens and ensure safety while accommodating growing technology.

Thank you, Attorney Becknell.

Um, so uh, Councilmember Green has asked me to present uh regarding Waymo, Robo Taxi, and Zooks.

Those are uh corporate names of the various four higher autonomous vehicles that are currently on the market.

Um, we know some of these have been seen in the city of New Orleans, especially Waymo, so we wanted to give everyone an update on what the city is doing in response.

Um, just a brief agenda of what we'll go through.

We're gonna have some background about what are autonomous for higher vehicles, what the federal regulations are, state and city regulations, Waymo testing in New Orleans, and the plans for city legislation.

So autonomous for higher vehicles are driverless vehicles that are available to provide rides to passengers in exchange for a fare.

Um that way they're similar to taxis and ride share.

Waymo is the most established company in the market, the one that most people are familiar with.

They are operated by Google, but Tesla and Amazon both have their own uh autonomous for higher vehicle options.

Tesla's is called RoboTaxi.

Amazon's is called Zooks.

The way that the federal government classifies autonomous vehicles is by levels of automation.

And many of these already exist in commercially available vehicles.

Level zero is just a momentary driver assistance.

It provides warnings and alerts or emergency safety interventions.

Level one is driver assistance.

That means that the driver is fully responsible for driving the vehicle, but the system provides continuous assistance with either acceleration and braking or searing.

Some of these the cruise controls available on vehicles operate this way.

Level two is termed additional driver assistance.

Driver is still fully responsible, but the system provides assistance on a continuous basis with both acceleration braking and steering.

This is what you generally see with a smart crews and in many vehicles that are on the market today.

And then we get into the higher levels of automation.

Level three is called conditional automation.

But a driver must be available to take over upon request.

This is how most of the quote unquote self-driving Teslas operate.

And then the highest levels of automation are levels four and five.

When it is engaged, the system drives and the people just ride in the car.

The system is fully responsible for driving tasks, and a human driver is not needed to operate the vehicle.

The main difference between level four and level five is that level four is limited to certain service areas, whereas level five operates on all conditions and all roadways.

Neither of these are available on today's vehicles for consumer purchase.

So autonomous for higher vehicles operate at a level four, and we'll come back to this slide, but I wanted to go ahead and put that piece of information out there.

So the national highway transit safety authority requires that the vehicles be tested by the companies that build them.

They must comply with federal motor vehicle safety standards, and the companies must certify that their vehicles are free of safety risks.

And these higher levels of automation, they are in testing, but they are not yet available for consumer purchase.

The NTHSA also operates an automated vehicle complaint form and a vehicle safety hotline for anyone who experiences any safety issues regarding these vehicles.

You can find this on their website, but we've also provided the link.

It's fairly easy to locate.

So as I've said, autonomous for hire vehicles like Waymo, and I will use Waymo sometimes as shorthand since that's the one that's appeared in the city of New Orleans, but this generally applies to all of these types of vehicles.

They operate at a level four.

There's no human driver necessary.

They are restricted to operating in specific mapped geographical areas, which is also known as geofencing or being geofenced.

Just a little bit about each company.

Waymo has manual controls, but they remain unused during passenger transit.

They may be operated remotely, however.

And the cars maintain a traditional seating layout.

Robo Taxi, which is the Tesla option, is the same.

Zooks has no manual controls and actually offers face-to-face seating for passengers.

So by far the most future forward option, at least from a visual standpoint.