Autonomous vehicles are coming to Chattanooga. What does this mean for us?
Updated: Sep 24
The Environmental Protection Agency, which uses standards made by SAE International, defines autonomous vehicles by grouping into different levels ranging from levels zero to five. Level 1 vehicles can only control one of either the speed or steering, Level 3 autonomous vehicles can drive themselves “but only under certain conditions”, so a human driver is still required. Finally, Level 5 autonomous vehicles can fully drive themselves and no human driver is required. According to Zoox, an autonomous car company, most autonomous vehicles associated with the ride-hail service are level 4. This means, according to the EPA, that the vehicles can drive themselves most of the time and do not require human drivers, but there are some situations such as extreme weather that the vehicles cannot handle. If a situation like this occurs the autonomous vehicles will pull over and stop.
It is unclear exactly how many autonomous vehicles are on the road in the US. The autonomous car company Waymo is operating its autonomous car rideshare program in 14 US cities. This includes multiple big cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Nashville, and Atlanta. Waymo is currently planning on expanding to 16 more American cities and Waymo is also planning to start its autonomous car rideshare program in London and Tokyo. Another autonomous car company, Zoox, operates its rideshare programs in San Francisco and Las Vegas and is planning on expanding to Miami and Austin. Tesla has also recently launched an autonomous car rideshare program in Austin.
According to the New York Times, all Waymo vehicles are electric. If autonomous cars were to become widespread, they could potentially begin to replace gas powered vehicles. Waymo claims that its electric cars put out less emissions than gas powered vehicles, and Waymo tries to offset its carbon emissions by buying renewable energy. A study done in 2023 by MIT claims that carbon emissions from self-driving cars are still a major problem. The study found that if autonomous cars were to become widely adopted, they would put out as much carbon emissions as all of the data centers in the world because of the computers needed to run them. In the terms of this study “widely adopted” means one billion autonomous cars.
The safety of autonomous cars has been questioned. According to Waymo, autonomous cars are ten times safer than cars driven by humans and that their mission for the future is “to be the world's most trusted driver”. Waymo says that their autonomous cars can handle dangerous situations like red light runners, street fights, and hail. An article from the Washington Post found from a study in New York City that Waymos are statistically safer than taxi and uber drivers. Waymos have only ever been involved in two fatal crashes. Only two in the entire US; in both cases the person killed was not the passenger in the Waymo and the Waymo vehicle was not at fault.
The fact that Waymos have never been at fault for any fatal crash does not mean that they are safe. According to the New York Times, there is an increasing number of “edge cases” that are showing up where Waymo cars act in strange and unpredictable ways, mainly from software glitches. One of the edge cases was when Waymo vehicles caused a gridlock in San Francisco on the Fourth of July. There was another case where a Waymo drove into a construction zone on a highway. Along with that, many Waymo vehicles were recalled after a software glitch. This glitch allowed the cars to drive on flooded roads.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stated in July that they are currently working to “accelerate American automated vehicle innovation”. Along with implementing policy changes to help promote autonomous vehicles they are also working to modernize the safety of autonomous vehicles and to create safety standards.
In September CARTA received a $25 million grant from the US Department of transportation in order to bring autonomous buses to Chattanooga. The Charger reached out to Brandon Meredith, the director of communications at CARTA, to ask him about this grant. He said that this is “a three year project starting in 2027 that includes planning, engineering, procurement, testing, validation” and that “the final stage will be public deployment in 2029.” He also said that the grant will allow for up to six shuttles.
When asked about the safety of the new autonomous buses he said that the shuttles will coordinate with smart intersections, and there will be oversight from the Remote Autonomous Operations Center. Along with that there will also be human AV Safety Ambassadors on board.
The long term vision is to use the autonomous vehicles to expand the bus services out into extended areas of Chattanooga like Red Bank.
When asked about how this technology will benefit Chattanooga in the long term he said that it will improve downtown mobility and reliability, that it will increase workforce opportunity by introducing high paying jobs that are needed to run this project and that it will position Chattanooga as a hub for autonomous vehicle transportation.
