Licensing Hearing - Regular Meeting

🎵 🎵 Thank you. So, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. um roll call please ward one council member bowie ward two council president naker

Board 3, Councilmember Jost. Board 4, Councilmember Coleman.

Here.

5, Councilmember Kim. Here. Board 6, Councilmember Yang. Here. Board 7, Councilmember Johnson.

Here.

Seeing five absent, or seeing five present, two absent, Council President Naker is excused.

Thank you. We are going to have a robust conversation about connected and automated vehicles. I'm really excited to have Tara Olds and Thomas Johnson Kaiser with us. So welcome. We have several members of the council here. We're excited for your presentation. We know you've been working with our council president's office, who is the chair, and I'm the vice chair of the policy committee. welcome, and in her absence, I'll be chairing the meeting and moving us through and trying to keep us to the time frame that you've been given. So, welcome.

Thank you very much, and thank you, council members. My name is Tara Olds. I'm the director of Connected Automated Vehicles at the Minnesota Department of Transportation. My colleague is Thomas Johnson-Kaiser, and I'll let him introduce himself as well real quick.

Good afternoon, council members. Thomas Johnson-Kaiser. I'm the policy and planning manager in our Connected and Automated Vehicle office at MnDOT.

So thank you for inviting us to have a conversation today. We're going to give a little overview about automated vehicles, make sure that we're all on the same page of what we're talking about, what they are, talk a little bit about what some of the conversations have been about policy, both at the state and federal level, and then answer any questions that you all have. So I will note, if you guys have questions while we are speaking, I welcome them, unless you guys would like to wait till the end. So feel free to tell us how you want to do that as we go. I also want to just note that nothing we present today is intended to be formal recommendations for city or state regarding policy. So please note that.

All right.

So before we dive into what are automated vehicles, I like to start with why are we even talking about automated vehicles. So we do believe that automated vehicles are a future of transportation system. We know that there's aspects of transportation that already incorporate technology like this, and we're seeing them more and more around the country as well as in the United States and even in the Midwest. With that being said, a lot of the areas that we often focus on about automated vehicles are safety, increased accessibility, economic growth, and then really just looking at how we can be a part of the conversation with innovation. And those potential benefits we talk about are not guarantees. Really think that's important to emphasize. We believe that these are great opportunities that if we see technology actually get implemented into our system effectively and appropriately, that we might actually see these. And these are all things I think we all can strive for. But with that, I want to also acknowledge that I think government has a role to play in ensuring that these goals are realized. If left to industry alone, this isn't always what's going to make their bottom line. So we have to make sure that we get the right policies and programs and projects in place to help see that. So increased safety, we know that there's over 400 fatalities typically on Minnesota roadways annually. I think we all would argue that one on our roadway is far too many, and we should all be striving to see zero. So anything we can do to increase safety is great. Human factors play over 90% of factors of crashes. So if you can start to decrease that, you might actually see other benefits in that safety realm come into play as well. We also know our transportation system does not serve everybody, does not serve everybody in the way that they want to be served equitably and where they want to get, how they can get to different types of markets, education, Economic opportunities, right? That all differs depending on where you live and what types of services are offered in your communities. So we think that providing additional types of technologies that might increase different systems might also provide new opportunities for people and increase that quality of life. And then economic growth. When you look at this space, when you look at technology, it is a major economic opportunity. And being that Minnesota already is home of a number of Fortune 500 companies and innovation is at the forefront of a lot of the things we do, We think it's a great opportunity to be a part of it. I'll note that there's a number of startup companies as well as different partners already in Minnesota that are playing in this space. So it is something that we're already ingrained in with a lot of the business that we already do. So automated vehicles, what are they? Just to make sure we're all talking about the same thing. So automated vehicles are vehicles that start to take over the human operations of a vehicle. So that might be steering, that might be accelerating or braking. You see this in vehicles that sometimes do require a human to monitor the activity still, and other vehicles that do not require a driver or an operator in the vehicle at all. So there's different variations of that that I'll get into here in a little bit. But you can see on the screen here, there's a number of different types of technology that play a part of automated vehicles. So you have cellular communications and things like 5G communications. You have a number of different types of sensors, whether there's radar, LIDAR, and other types of technologies with that. They use GPS technology to make sure that they know where they're at from a latitude longitude. They can start to identify the space that they're in based on other types of maps that they're able to capture as well. And then all of them have a central computer to be able to make the decision making process using machine learning and being able to pull in data information from not just necessarily the one personal or the one vehicle that maybe is operating, but all vehicles that are operating using the same system depending on how companies do that. I think something that's really important to note about automated vehicles, they're all different. Not all of them use the exact same technology. Not all of them use it the same. They don't use the same decision-making processes. There are no federal standards in this space. And so it makes it a little bit complicated when you try to compare the different types of technologies. Some companies only use cameras. Some companies use cameras, LIDARs, and other types of sensors to locate and be able to see what is in front of them. And so apologies for this slide, as it has a lot of information. But feel free to dive into it later when you're at home asking yourself more questions. But I wanted to put this in here to articulate the variations of autonomy that we talk about. So in our space, we have levels 0 through 5. And so just for the purposes of today, I want to go through this really high level to make sure that we're all understanding what we're talking about. So zeros one through two are typically the vehicles that you might find that you could personally purchase off a dealership today. Those have anything from no automation to a little bit of automation. Things that might be able to help you do some sort of acceleration as well as some lane keeping at the same time might be a level two vehicle that you could purchase. Quite common. All of those do require the human to be in control of the vehicle at all times. Any vehicle that you purchase in Minnesota today is not higher than a level two, so just make sure that that is clear. You are responsible to be in charge of your vehicle at all times, no matter what vehicle you are operating. Does that make sense? And then you move into level three, and that gets a little bit gray. So for the instances of this, I'm just going to kind of graze over level three, because I like to call that one really tricky. But level four and five is where you completely remove a human operator at all times. And that's what we're talking about today from some of the discussions we've had regarding policy. So human is no longer required to operate a vehicle in the design that it has been designed intended to operate in. So that might be that it can operate on certain roads and certain weathers and certain different geographical areas, but there are limits to that. And so within that, it is able to operate without a human. That's where it gets a little bit fuzzy on some of the questions that we have when it comes to some of the policy and things like that. A common level four vehicle that we see out on roadways today in different environments is a Waymo. There's other companies out there as well that I'll get into here in a second. So in Minnesota, we've done a few automated vehicle demonstration projects as well. Not everybody's always familiar with this, so I think it's great to kind of give a little insight to some of the information that we've been able to do here in Minnesota. Our first two projects were with low-speed automated vehicle shuttles. They did not operate at roadway speeds. Quite frankly, they operated sometimes between 5 to 10 miles per hour, so you can imagine how that might function in certain environments where Roadway speeds were more in the 20 to 25 miles per hour. We had one down in Rochester, Minnesota called the Med City Mover and that operated from 2021 to 2022. That project was one of our first projects that was really to help us understand how does this technology work? What are the different types of technologies on board the systems? How might it ingrain in our transportation system and how might it connect with our infrastructure? We learned a lot. We learned a lot about how low-speed automated shuttles create a lot of chaos in a multimodal downtown urban environment with mixed traffic, including a number of different pedestrians and visitors from out of town and things like that. Another project we did was the Bear Tracks project in White Bear Lake, and that was from 2021. and that was more of a suburban environment. Pretty similar though of trying to better understand how is this gonna function within our system and are there other things that we can learn. The project on the top is the white one and that one's Go Marty. That project actually started in 2022 and was a little bit of a different type of system where the original two were just circulator routes that stuck to a fixed route. The Go Marty project up in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, so more of an urban rural community, if you will, is on-demand service that can go from multi-point destinations. So it doesn't have to take just a fixed route, but is on just certain roads that it is able to travel as well. That project started under some MnDOT funding and other partnership funding and has now been extended under a federal Attain grant to extend all the way through 2028. It definitely has become a great resource for the community to look at how transportation can be different. But the technology is, I think, what brought it to the community. But the on-demand service is something that we really recognize as being the big benefit. So with all of these projects, we've learned a lot of different things. Some of the things have been about the AV technology. Some of it's about maybe where AV is needed, where it's not needed. Some of it's about just how to look at transportation a little bit differently as well and what are some of the needs of our communities that we might be able to serve. With all these projects also, they use different types energy, some are flex fuel, some are EV, some are gas powered, different types of numbers of passengers, different places they can stop, things like that. Yeah, so we've had a number of different projects where we've learned about how this technology does work and how it can work within our system. And then I wanted to give a little overview of some of the automated vehicles that you might see in the United States today. Mind you, this is a very small list. There's probably a handful more that I'm sure if I had some of my industry partners in here, they would call me out for not having their picture on the slide. But a few of them that might be more familiar. So like I mentioned, we have Go Marty. That's in the bottom right corner. So they have a new wrap design up there. for the second phase of that project. That's a partnership with May Mobility. So they're an AV tech company out of Michigan. And so they use Toyota Siennas that are wheelchair accessible to be able to move passengers around. I'll also note that Southwest Transit in Eden Prairie also uses May Mobility Toyota Siennas on demand Southwest Prime route that they offer as well. So they're looking at trying to incorporate automated vehicles into their services that they already offer.

And thank you. And we have a quick question from Councilmember Coleman.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Thank you all so much for this presentation. Question on the GoMartys and the wheelchair accessibility. Are those, they're accessible even without a driver? Like they're accessible without any additional human support for individuals who are in a wheelchair? Thank you, Council.

Council members, so great question. No, currently to date, as far as I am aware, there are no automated wheelchair-securement devices that are being used in any vehicles to date. And so that is a component of the function that it still does need to have a human component to that. I should also note, on all three of our demonstration projects, including the ongoing Go Marty project and Southwest Transit, a human is behind the wheel at all times. They are not 100% autonomous yet. But yeah, so in those, you still do need the human components to secure a wheelchair. There are some companies that are working on that. I don't know how far they're at, but I know that there's a lot of excitement in the accessibility community to see that as another way to increase their independence as well. It's definitely tricky knowing that all wheelchairs are created a little different as well. The bottom left, I want to draw your attention to that one. That's Waymo. So in case you're not familiar with their newer vehicle that they've started to deploy in different locations, particularly with more winter weather climates, this is their Zeker. So you might be seeing them around the Twin Cities metro area as they begin mapping, started back in November of 2025. Additionally, a couple other of the people-moving vehicles we have in the upper right. This is Zoox. So if you've been to Las Vegas, you may have had an opportunity to ride in one of those. That's backed by Amazon. You have AV Ride. They are doing some testing down in Texas. They are not to full driverless operations on their vehicles yet either, but they have a number of other things like sidewalk delivery robots as well. The middle left, sorry for my jumping around on this, is Motional. And those are just a couple. Oh, and then in the middle right is Moya. Moya is a partnership with VW. And they've been doing some testing in Austin as well. So a lot of testing of those are taking place in that southwest area of the United States. And then three other ones I wanted to draw attention to were goods moving. So we have in the upper left is Kodiak. The far right middle is Aurora. And then the bottom middle is Stack AV. And all three of those use AV technologies to move freight. Primarily a lot of the testing of not just people moving but also goods moving with AV has been done in the southwest parts of the United States. Predominantly in Texas is a great place to start due to weather as well as their regulatory framework. But they are starting to see all of these both from the people moving as well as the freight moving starting to move north into other diverse areas of the United States. So I'm going to just finish up here real quick and then hand it over to Thomas to give a little overview of some other work. But I wanted to highlight, in Minnesota, we have a Governor's Advisory Council on Connected Automated Vehicles. This was established in 2018 under Governor Mark Dayton, has been re-established under Governor Walts in his first and second term. And this is 15 members that are appointed by the governor and chaired by our commissioner, as well as another person that's named by the governor to chair. And these folks are really to try to help the state prepare for connected automated vehicle, ITS, and other emerging transportation technologies. It's not supposed to try to say how to solve every issue with it, but really try to help provide recommendations on what can we do from different projects and different policies and different things to help make sure that all people in our state benefit from the technologies. We've had a number of different representatives over the last three cohorts of this council that have represented from Fortune 500 companies like 3M, Polaris. We have other folks from insurance and labor, from cybersecurity, from AI lawyers. from consulting companies, from Freight, University of Minnesota, and a number of other folks as well. So really diverse group of folks creates some really good perspectives, but definitely probably not all perspectives in Minnesota are represented by that. I did want to note that the council every four years does provide executive report with recommendations of what are their recommendations for if a council should continue and what they should focus on. And so this last iteration of the council, we had 12 different categories that we were focusing on. And the council really identified about three or four of those to move forward. We've identified other committees to help establish and move those efforts forward. Because as you all know, high level committees, it's hard to sometimes get the work done unless we establish more groups to do that. And so they've really focused on a number of different things including safe testing, data and cybersecurity, traffic safety regulations, and now moving forward more into the legislative side, as well as workforce and labor. So I'm going to hand it over to Thomas, as he's going to share a little bit about what the council's been doing over the last few years, because they've really taken a strong action in trying to look at what should we do in our state to help us prepare for automated vehicle policy.

All right. Thanks, Tara. So yeah, the council, as Tara mentioned, kind of has different focuses and priorities And yearly we have a connected automated vehicle summit that takes place usually in the fall. And in 2024 at that summit, they decided that they wanted to focus on moving forward was looking at automated vehicle policy and a regulatory framework for the state of Minnesota. So that has been the focus of the council in partnership with MnDOT for the last year and a half or so. So part of the reason for this is Minnesota is one of a handful of states currently that does not have any rules or regulations or legislation specifically regarding automated vehicles. So it is nothing expressly prohibits or authorizes the operation of a fully automated vehicle, so a vehicle without a driver, in our state currently. So as you can see in the map here, there are a number of different states that do have different levels of regulation. So some allow full operations, some allow just testing, and there's a number, many of which, and there are neighbors in the Midwest that do not have any current legislation. So that was the focus of the Council of Wine to come up with recommendations, establish what they think Minnesota should do regarding automated vehicle policy and a regulatory framework. So before we dive into that, I want to highlight a little bit some of the considerations of the different levels that we typically see regarding vehicle regulations. So as Tara mentioned, there currently are no federal regulations and very little federal guidance regarding automated vehicles currently. This is something that the federal government is working on and has announced some good steps in progress in that place, in particular around saying some national safety standards for vehicles. So something that is traditionally done for vehicles at the federal level. So we're looking to see that be done again for automated vehicles of saying some of those safety standards. So things like the automotive vehicle equipment and then also the federal government looks at things like defects, noncompliance, can do recalls, things of that nature for vehicles. At the state level, traditionally the state handles things like licensing, vehicle registration, operations permits for things like limos or small moving carriers, things of that nature. Insurance and liability requirements are typically done at a state level for vehicles, establishing traffic laws, doing inspections of different types of vehicles like commercial motor vehicles and other vehicles of that type, and saying some of those standard roadway designs. The states will often have some of the business operations. And we'll get into the regulations regarding transportation network companies, TNCs, so Uber, Lyft, those type of companies are oftentimes regulated at a state level. But Minnesota is a little bit unique, where a lot of those regulations do fall on the local level. So some of the things that I'm sure you all are quite familiar with that the local level of government typically oversees for vehicles are things like building codes, zoning codes, that local street design, curb management, land development, and in Minnesota, a lot of the business operation pieces for transportation network companies. So knowing that with automated vehicles, there's many different players and pieces of this puzzle for regulatory framework. So what makes sense to happen at the federal level versus state level versus local level is kind of all being determined currently. With the lack of federal regulations presently, most of that has fallen to the state level. There's been a few regulations set at local level, but for the vast majority of regulations we've seen thus far for automated vehicles across the country has been at the state level. So some of the work that we've done over the last year or so in preparing for automated vehicle policy is trying to understand what automated vehicle laws there are around other states in our country. So as I mentioned, a number of our states have tackled this issue, but what can we learn from their efforts? Developing some high-level themes or topics that we typically see in automated vehicle legislation that I'll get into shortly. Understanding where there are those gaps in our existing laws and regulations. They were not written with the idea that there might not be a human behind the driver's wheel. So how can we update, edit, enhance our existing legislation and regulations to apply to automated vehicles? We've done a lot of stakeholder summary, or stakeholder engagement of reaching out to different stakeholders on this topic, understanding what they're excited about, what they're concerned about, trying to really document and be clear so policymakers can understand how people feel about these different issues, and leading to some automated vehicle policy recommendations that the council developed at the end of 2025 and released in early 2026.

And Mr. Johnson-Kaiser, we actually have another question from Council Member Coleman.

So I'm making up for not asking questions during budget. Just to make sure I'm understanding what the state of the current law is, and I know that we're going to get into some of the legislation that's been proposed. But my understanding is that at present, Obviously, as was shown on the previous slide, we are just silent on AV operations. But that's been interpreted by both the state and various players, including Waymo, to mean that you can't have a vehicle operating in the state without a human operator in the driver's seat. but that if state regulations or state legislation doesn't come into play in the near future, it is possible that we would see companies trying to challenge that understanding of the law and claim that the silence authorizes them to operate these vehicles without having a human in them. Is that an accurate or fair characterization of the current understanding of the law?

Yeah, thank you, council members. Yes, I think that is an accurate characterization interpretation. I'm not a lawyer. I would say we leave it to folks to make their determination. I think what MnDOT has said is that there's nothing that expressly prohibits or authorizes automated vehicles currently. So we have heard different interpretations from different individuals or organizations on what that means. So yeah, it is unclear in some folks' minds in terms of what the current legality of operating a vehicle without a driver would be. All right, so I want to highlight some of these key themes and topics that we typically see with automated vehicle policy to give you all an idea of the type of issues that we're looking at and have to consider when developing automated vehicle policy and regulations. So the first is testing deployment operations. So some states have taken an approach of just allowing testing of automated vehicles. Some allow full operations. California in particular has a more staged or phased approach of having testing requirements first before moving to operations. Data privacy and security, what kind of additional data privacy or security requirements would there need to be for automated vehicles? State and local governments, touching this a little bit already, but where are there different pieces of this puzzle that would fall in the state level versus local level? How does that different regulatory framework come into play there? Safety verification, so also mentioned this a little bit before where this traditionally does happen at the federal level for all the safety verification, but how can we ensure that automated vehicles are safe? Making sure they can do things like achieving a minimal risk condition, which means if there is an issue, they would pull off the road into a safe space. Insurance and liability, what kind of insurance or additional insurance requirements would be needed for automated vehicles? How does the liability, if there is a crash, how does that change when there is no human behind the wheel. What is the role of the driver or operator, how that might change if there is not a human needed to drive, maybe things like wheelchair securement or other needs for a human operator, how that role might change, maybe with remote assistance or remote operations as well. What kind of registration or permitting would be needed for these vehicles to be able to operate on Minnesota roadways? What we see very often is states require an emergency services interaction plan to be submitted before any operation takes place. So our emergency services or first responders know how to interact and engage with these vehicles. What is the ability to remove bad actors? So what is the enforcement mechanism for these vehicles if there is any operator that's not following the rules of the road or the regulatory framework that's laid out? What, if any, kind of accessibility requirements would be needed, as Tara mentioned, with one of the potential benefits for automated vehicles is increasing those transportation options, especially for those who are unable to drive themselves. So how would that accessibility piece come to play? And what are the workforce impacts and implications and development opportunities for automated vehicles? So the workforce impacts was definitely a topic of a lot of consideration, discussion during the 2026 legislative session. So I want to just take a couple of minutes here to chat about that in particular. So I think the workforce impacts are really unknown at this point of what they might be. So what kind of job disruption, job loss might there be for drivers? Will there be jobs created as part of this? We see some automated vehicle operators provide statistics of job creation. Unclear what that might look like. How can jobs potentially change, adjust? So this is something that is very top of mind for a lot of folks and stakeholders. trying to figure out what Minnesota can do to help plan and prepare for this, what research needs to be done, what policies or programs can be put in place to help prepare and mitigate any potential job or workforce challenges. So we have created a number of resources on these topics that are available on our website for folks to dive deeper in. The first one is a packet on those state-level policy themes. So diving deeper into those themes I went into, showing what our states have done, where there's maybe consistency or kind of standard ways that states have moved in one direction or not, some different approaches to take for those different themes. The middle two are just one-page documents, a high-level overview of what automated vehicles are and kind of what the different states have done regarding automated vehicles and regulations. And the last one are the Governor's Council recommendations on automated vehicle policy that break that down by theme, kind of where they think policy should go. As Tara mentioned, there's a 15-member group. Not everyone agrees on every topic, so we tried to really include the different council member perspectives on there as well, so understanding where there might be some differences of opinion on direction to go for automated vehicle policy. So during the 2026 Minnesota legislative session, there was a lot of discussion regarding automated vehicle. As you can see, a number of bills introduced both on the House and Senate side. with different perspectives or approaches on automated vehicles. Ultimately, no legislation did pass, but there was a lot of discussion had, so a lot of topics focused on workforce. It was very heavily focused on the Waymo, RoboTaxi type of regulation with most, if not all, the bills introduced focusing on that type of use case for automated vehicles and pretty limiting or excluding the more freight side that Tara mentioned as well. A lot of discussion on what kind of data reporting requirements there might be for automated vehicles at a state level. How do we permit these type of vehicles or provide registration for them? And also there was some discussion around creating a task force or doing additional research or things, questions that remain before moving forward. There is also been discussion not only on the U.S. Department of Transportation side of things with creating safety standards, but there's been some language, draft language introduced on the federal side for legislation for automated vehicles. All of that has been in draft format so far, so nothing has moved forward and passed on the federal side as well. So we highly anticipate this will be another topic in the 2027 legislative session. So we're actively planning and preparing for that. So finally, just some considerations for St. Paul and local governments to be thinking about with automated vehicles. Definitely follow the ongoing conversations at the state and federal level. And then looking to see in that slide that had the federal, state, and local side, what are those local policy issues that make sense for cities to focus on? And there's lots of great ways to get involved in this conversation if folks are interested in diving more. yourselves or staff or others. The NACTO, so National Association of City Transportation Officials, has a committee, an Emerging Technologies Committee, that focuses and has a lot of discussion regarding automated vehicles. I know the city of Minneapolis is pretty active in that area as well, so learning a lot from other cities that have had automated vehicle deployments. The US DOT has been introducing their first AV peer exchange, and they have plans for more of bringing together state and local folks to come together to continue the discussion, this conversation. So I believe the invite was sent to St. Paul to participate as well. I know I think folks from St. Minneapolis are coming to that in September in California as well. So there's continued opportunities to get involved there. And then our Governor's Advisory Council and working groups, our Innovation Alliance Committee groups, those are open for folks to participate. Our Governor's Advisory Council meetings are all open to the public. Anyone can attend and participate in those. And we also have a newsletter that is released usually monthly that can provide some good updates and information on what's going on with automated vehicles. Thank you so much for your time and interest in this topic. We're happy to answer any questions you may have.

All right, thank you. Just one initial question that I had for you is what we're seeing in other municipalities across the region, especially those that have actually taken chances in policy-related stances regarding this topic. I'm just curious as to what you have seen at the local level, if any, from some of the cities within those states that have policies in place.

Yeah, I can thank you for the question, Councilmember. So I can take that first. So in the vast majority of states that we see automated vehicle operations and where there is regulations, that is done at the state level. And most often, most of the regulations or most localities are preempted with having specific rules or regulations regarding automated vehicles. We have seen some cities and move forward with some specific policy and regulations. I'd say especially in those areas where there is no state legislation currently. But for the most part, we see some local preemption done at a state level for auto and vehicle policy.

Thank you. Council Member Coleman, did you have a follow-up question?

Yeah, thank you. a comment and then a question. I think it seems to me that there are a whole bunch of, I'm thinking about the safety aspect of AVs as compared to the status quo. You all talked about the number of current fatalities that we see on Minnesota roads in an average year. It's obviously far, far too high. We know that a significant number of those fatalities are a direct result of human error or human which I think makes it seem like, oh, AVs could really be a part of the solution here. It's also my understanding that we have a whole set of unique safety concerns when it comes to AVs. I'm thinking about the risk of just more vehicles on the roads, what we've seen in places where AVs have been deployed, and we're seeing the deadheading, or whatever it's called, where you just have a... I think there was a study that came out of California where it was like, 50% of the time that AVs are on the road, they're not in use. So it's just more cars that aren't actually even moving people from place to place, which seems like a huge concern. Other safety concerns that have been raised are, you know, about people getting into vehicles and then not being able to get out of vehicles because of intoxication or drug use or whatnot. I'm just... So it's... I think one of the things that I really struggle with when I think about AVs is, is this solving a problem of our current, of the status quo not being good enough and safe enough, or is it creating more problems than it solves? And I'm just curious if you all could share sort of how the Governor's Council or how you all in your work have been thinking about those safety questions, maybe any kind of updated data that we have or that you all are considering or that you think that we should be aware of.

Thank you, Councilmember. Yes, all really good questions. And I think you ask a really good question of what are we solving and what are we maybe introducing. And I think it's a little bit of both. I think with anything that you introduce, there's going to be other changes and other potentially unintended consequences. So when we can learn from other cities, other states that have seen deployments and we see what happens, I think that gives us a great opportunity to make sure we get this right. What are the things that we can put in place to try to address those issues that have occurred? I think one thing that's really important, and I'll note I'm in this space, so I definitely probably have a bias. But when you see things in the media, you are seeing an instance in the media. There are lots of them that get repeated, don't get me wrong. But I think every time if you were to drive with perhaps your friend or even myself, you could probably cite a few things that maybe I could have done different or better as well. So I would just encourage people, when they do see things in the media, to really try to dive into it and ask, is that something that could have happened with a human operator? And would it have happened with a human operator? And how many times does it happen with a human operator? Because I would argue it probably already does. But I'm not saying that that's a reason that we shouldn't address it, if that also makes sense. So I think Thomas, you wanted to?

Yeah, really great questions. And I think one of the big challenges is there, with the Advent of automated vehicles still only being prevalent in the last few years. There's not a ton of research and data, but very recently the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety released a very good study on this topic around safety and focused particularly, that's where they had the data on Waymo vehicles and some of their deployments, and they did have a stat in there that was, I think it was 68% fewer crashes with Waymo vehicles compared to human drivers of a similar situation. But that was just one study. And this was only data through 2024. But it was one of the first studies that we've seen from an independent third party evaluator that had some interesting data. So that's a question that I think a lot of us in this field have been looking for and asking of understanding What are the safety benefits? What are the safety challenges? How do we potentially create a framework that can help realize those benefits and minimize those challenges? But those challenges definitely do exist.

OK, so Council Member Yang, and then we'll go to Council Member Bowie.

Thank you, Chair Johnson. Thank you both for coming and presenting. In the slide about workforce, I'm wondering if you can talk just a little bit more about the three bullet points under what will the impacts be. I have an idea of what it is. However, just overall, the net outcome of what you're seeing in terms of trends for jobs, are we losing more than what is being created?

this the slide you were referring to yes okay thank you council member um yeah i can give you some high level information and thomas can maybe jump in with some more information too so jobs lost i think the first thing that we talk about is driving operators whether they are drivers or full-time operators people that you know drive for a living those might be people that are driving delivery vehicles driving freight driving people taxis transit drivers and then we can also look at tnc operators that in the gig economy and that has maybe changed from being part-time to now full-time for a lot of people so I think we all recognize impacts are real, and that if those jobs go away, that's going to be significant changes to our workforce. And so one thing we talk about a lot is if things are happening and changing, how can we start to get ahead of that today? We know that with a lot of technology, not just in the transportation space, but just technology getting introduced to our society more and more every day. This is something that DEED, our Department of Employment and Economic Development, is actively working on. And so we're partnering with them and trying to figure out, are there things that we could do specifically for AVs and transportation in this space as well? I'll also note when it comes to jobs created, the companies will tell you they're creating a lot of jobs. I don't know how to back that up, and I don't know how to check it. I think that's going to be a really tough thing. But also, I think it changes maybe what they are able to do when they first deploy in a community versus what's the sustaining effort in a community as well. And jobs change. We look at the way that AV technology starts to change the way that we actually maintain our vehicles. So even just if you take in your personal vehicle that you purchased maybe over the last couple years to an auto mechanic, the way that they're checking for things in the engine and the computer system and things is all different and all changing. I don't know if anyone dabbles in auto mechanic stuff. I don't. And I'm very glad I don't because I feel like it's changed a number of times since I've been a driver myself. But things like that we know just kind of are changing. Or as Thomas even mentioned, how a human operator might now move to being a human attendant, depending on what those needs of the services are. Going back to Council Member Holman's question about even personal safety in a vehicle, I always say if you're taking a bus potentially late at night and things like that, I actually really like the fact that there's a driver on there. That creates a sense of safety for me personally. So might we see other ways that humans are integrated into our transportation system outside of the operations environment? if we see other benefits that offset it. I was going to add one more note on the jobs lost side of it. Oh, you asked, is there any data? It's hard. I can pull some reports, and I can't even justify to tell you if they're the right reports, because there's very limited information on this. There's a couple of reports that I have found that I feel say it varies. In some communities, when particularly you're looking at where robo taxis get deployed, TNC operators might have be making more money per hour but less rides per hour. And so it kind of starts to be like, well, in LA, it's this. In Austin, it's this. And so there's not a clear trend with the data that we saw. And I think that was a report from 2024. I'll note that here in Minnesota, if robotaxis get deployed and how that will impact TNC operators is a real question because right now, there's really no great way to track independent contractors. and the impact that'll have based on how people do their business. They're not employees, so it's a little bit different. So it's complicated, and I think that's a complication that other states are seeing and trying to track it as well. So unfortunately, I don't feel like it's a great answer, but it's the best answer we got.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Boyd.

Thank you, Chair Johnson. Thank you so much for this presentation. I know it's so timely, as we've all probably seen in our own backyards, these automatic vehicles roaming around. So I'm happy to see us actually have this conversation and to know that there is a council at the state level examining this. I do have three questions. I'll just start off with the two easy ones, and the last question is more so like a comment, and I'm trying to just contextualize and make sense of how I plan to navigate some of these things around workforce development. But my first question, and I don't know if you mentioned it earlier, but are there any local officials represented on the existing council? If you can list some of those local officials.

Yeah, thank you, council member. So currently on the governor's council, we do have members of city of Minneapolis staff that is on the council as a council member. And then we have a number of ex-officio members as well, which is folks that represent other state agencies. Also, the League of Minnesota Cities has a representative as an ex-officio member. And then there's a county government representative as well.

Anyone from St. Paul?

Not currently.

Thank you. And my second question is for state budgetary requirements, obviously with the council that's budgeted for, but with some of the recommendations that's coming forth, do you anticipate on how much that would cost the state to actually manage the regulation? And then also, out of curiosity as well, are there conversations around potential revenue streams that can actually pay for it. I'm just asking that question because at the county and the city level, and I see we have our PED staff here as well, when there are laws passed, there's usually sometimes, I won't say usually, but there could be the case of unfunded mandates, right? And is that taken into consideration? If we are going to regulate this in the future, what is that going to actually cost counties, cities, and states?

Thank you, Councilmember. So it really depended based on the number of bills that were introduced. They varied greatly in terms of what the regulatory framework would be or the approach that they were taking. And with each of those, there was kind of a fiscal impact estimate. So all those were quite different. I would say from a MnDOT perspective, we don't see a significant cost to, depending on what the implementation of any bill that would pass would be. If it comes like permitting or things like that, we already have some of those systems in place, so don't see a significant cost. And then there has also been discussion on Yeah, revenue streams, would there be a charge or a fee to apply for a permit that could be used to potentially offset any additional costs? One other question that we often get from local government partners is what infrastructure investments or costs would be needed to support automated vehicles? And our typical answer is none. Automated vehicle operators tell us that they are able to operate an existing infrastructure. MnDOT is not planning on investing any infrastructure investment specifically for automated vehicles. So I think that's a common question we receive, but don't anticipate there being significant infrastructure costs. And a lot of this depends on is it 10 vehicles to start with. When it gets from 10 to 200 to 2,000, costs and things might change. So it's hard to know what level of interest. I believe right now in their mapping, Waymo has 12 vehicles around here in the Twin Cities area. So managing 12 vehicles is quite different than managing 12,000. So kind of to be determined on what some of those costs might be.

I will note, too, one other thing. So we do coordinate with our other enterprise agencies, and DPS is where our DMV is housed. And so just acknowledging that if we were to ensure that we had registration with a designation of automated vehicle, that would require some updates in the system. So there is probably a cost to that from a state perspective. I know that some cities have looked at, when looking at potentially operational permits or business operation permits, excuse me, from a TNC comparable side of things, there's aspects of potentially incorporating costs to be able to address those costs. But I think that typically we see those are supposed to be just to address the actual cost of administering, not to go in excess. I'll note that you mentioned workforce, so just something that the council and a number of partners are throwing out are what are ways that we can explore how to address that. And I'll say, we're telling everyone, throw all the crazy ideas at the wall and let's see what ends up sticking and what might be something. So if there's something out there that we can explore with our different partners, with industry partners, I'll note that we've had conversations with folks at Waymo as well as other industry partners that they want to be a part of the conversation. They're not necessarily always sure how. And so I think it creates some opportunity that in Minnesota we might be able to do something a little bit different.

And my last question, thank you so much for that. Sorry, I just want to give some context. It is kind of like a little question, but I'll try to concise it. I mean, you already kind of talked a little bit about it. I think it's more so like a political question, right? Like how local officials, state officials are assessing for equity and wealth distribution, particularly what type of business models we want to invite into our city. And how are we using our regulatory tools and mechanisms, registration mechanisms, to ensure that we're retaining our existing workers? And I would be really interested to hear what the labor union stakeholders are saying about this. And just be candid. I think in St. Paul, we have a large East African population here that's represented in our taxis and driving industries. And I know we had this debate. way before I was a city council member, but there was a large debate around the Ubers and Lyfts of the world coming here and what that meant in terms of fighting for fair wages and how there's been a lot of momentum and energy at the state level to ensure that they can negotiate and unionize. And I know for some of these startup companies, there is a lot of pushback. At the same time, we want to incentivize this growth and innovation. So I'm just really curious just to know, like, you know, how has those conversations took shape on the council and in where, you know, our state legislatures can really step in to ensure that, you know, by adding these transportation options aren't displacing existing workers. And then now we have even bigger, like great, yes, we have options, but now we have people who don't have their jobs anymore and their ability to take care of their families.

Thank you, Councilmember. So yes, this has been a very, I'll say, passionately discussed topic on the council. We do have one member that represents from Teamsters. So they are one voice, but we recognize that's not all voices in the labor discussion. We have had a number of conversations with stakeholders. I think we're probably up over 100 over the last couple of years now. And a number of those are different labor groups as well. So we've met with SEIU. We've met with, like I mentioned, Teamsters, ALFCIO, MOLDA, Minnesota Uber Lyft Drivers Association. And so we try to reach out to anybody and everybody to understand what their perspectives are. I'll say that it does vary depending on who you talk to and who you talk to in those different groups, depending on it. It varies at a local level and a national level. It varies on a personal level to who is the person that is the lead of those organizations. So some of the folks we talk to are very welcoming of this, and they see it as an opportunity to potentially help their business also grow in some ways. And some see it very much as a direct threat to their work. It's challenging, I'll say, but I think the reality is we know that at some point there probably will be some sort of impact to workers, and we know that it's likely probably people of color and immigrant communities more if we're talking about our TNC workforce. So that's where I mentioned earlier we're trying to partner with DEET and figure out what our existing programs and services that exist, but also are there additional things that we might be able to explore to try to address those? Because I think it's... We're kind of at this crux of if there's opportunities for benefits of saving lives, but opportunities that are going to potentially have displacement, are there ways to get win-wins? And that's where we're really trying to work towards. Can't guarantee it, but I'm an optimist, and so I'm really hopeful we're going to get there. Did you have anything you want to add?

Well, thank you so much for just taking the time as well to be here with us and to kind of bring us up to speed on just what the state conversations are looking like. This is definitely something that when it showed up on our agenda, I was like, wow, I haven't fully thought through just kind of what is needed. And I'm sure that there's a lot of robust conversations happening at the state level. I'm curious to see, just region-wide, it seems like there's some work to do. A lot of the white areas are actually here in the Midwestern region. I'm curious as that we aren't on the coast, so maybe we're not getting a lot of the equipment that's here. I can speculate a lot, but I'm curious as to what how that, what that looks like across the region as well, like, because our neighboring areas, you know, having different legislation there and having folks when we drive through and be confused, I think there's a lot of questions that'll come up when this starts to actually have legislation attached to what we're wanting to see here. I think from the city side as well, and the inclusion, and also I appreciate the question around St. Paul, St. Paul's participation or seat into some of the statewide conversations. I think that's something that I'm curious about, just where you all see the capital city in those discussions. Because it seems like a lot of discussions may be even taking place in the capital city, but this capital city is not present at the council. So that's just something that I took note of, of just like, is it an official seat or is it working with some of the folks who are listed here? But I also am wondering about the St. Paul delegation and where they stand on that, too. So there's definitely a lot of questions. So I think going through it just sparked a lot of more questions, more questions than answers, I would say, at this time. But I'm very appreciative of you all taking the time to be here as well. I saw Councilmember Kim's hand.

Yeah, just a quick one. I think in lieu of maybe any policy we might take upon, I would just encourage myself and my colleagues to consider what our legislative priorities look like for the city next year, for next year's session. So recognizing there's some good things that I think we'd like the state to do. not to make the excuse that we can't, but it's just to recognize, I think, some of the stronger mechanisms of enforcement and legislation could come from the state level. So I would just be interested in working with some of my colleagues to see some of these make its way into our legislative platform for next year.

Yeah, and we have a legislative platform that the council approves every year. And often we can find both House or Senate bills that we are asking for, but also ones that we find in support. So kind of knowing where these go and where these end up and if they're returning with the intent to continue forward would be really helpful to that discussion as we think through what our next upcoming session platform would be. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And I'll add one thing. You mentioned participation. We do have, coming up, there's a day-long summit that we have regarding automated vehicles, a discussion with the council that if folks are interested to attend, we do have space for folks to attend that. And there is going to be, knowing some of the topics that were discussed. specific panel regarding workforce and labor impacts and some of the other key topics that we discussed so there are lots of opportunities for folks to participate and we're more than welcome and folks participate there'll be a local government panel as well with folks from austin la phoenix and portland will it be live streamed in any way will the panel discussions be streamed or will they be virtual we will get back to you for

Seeing no other business before us, I'll adjourn us four minutes early.