Uber wants to resume self-driving tests on public roads

Nearly eight months after one of his autonomous test vehicles hit and killed an Arizona pedestrian, Uber wants to resume testing on public roads.

The company has applied to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for testing in Pittsburgh. She issued a long safety report in which she pledged to place two rescue drivers in each vehicle and to take all precautions to make the vehicles safe.

Company officials acknowledged that they still had a long way to go to regain public confidence after the March 18 crash in Tempe, Arizona, which killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg when she was killed. she was crossing a dark road outside the lines of a pedestrian crossing.

Police said that Uber's stand-alone driver in the Volvo autonomous SUV was broadcasting the TV show "The Voice" on his phone and looked down before the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board said the Volvo's autonomous driving system spotted the Herzberg about six seconds before it hit, but did not stop because the system used to automatically brake in potentially dangerous situations was turned off. . A Volvo emergency braking system was also deactivated.

"Our goal is to really work to regain that trust and help advance the entire industry," said Noah Zych, head of the safety system for autonomous cars, in an interview. "We think the right thing to do is to be open and transparent about what we do."

Among the other precautions that Uber will take is to keep the autonomous vehicle system switched on at all times and to activate Volvo's emergency automatic emergency braking system.

In addition, Uber is demanding more technical training and expertise from employees sitting behind the wheel of vehicles, calling them "mission specialists," according to a 70-page safety report released Friday by the company.

The report comes after the San Francisco company has stopped testing autonomous vehicles in order to conduct an internal review of its safety procedures, as well as an external review of the risk management company LeClairRyan .

Uber said Pennsylvania's new rules ban testing of autonomous vehicles without human backup. Google's Waymo is already carrying passengers in the Phoenix area without a human driver, and General Motors' Cruise Automation is hoping to do it next year.

Messages were left Friday to solicit comments from Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto.

The company said it's focusing on restarting testing in Pittsburgh, where it has an autonomous vehicle development center. Later, there will be talk of the recovery in Arizona, California and Toronto, its other test sites. Arizona has suspended the company's authorization to conduct tests after the crash. The company's license to test self-driving cars in California expired in March and she chose not to renew it at that time.

Herzberg's death was the first involving a fully autonomous vehicle, raising questions about the safety of computer-controlled cars built by Uber and dozens of other companies, including the Google-derived company Waymo. Despite these concerns, Waymo, of Mountain View, recently obtained a license to test cars in California without a driver.

Uber took the first step towards the resumption of tests in Pittsburgh in July by putting vehicles on the road with safety changes and additional driver training. But the cars were not free of human control and they did not answer the calls either.

"We are working with the city, the officials, and we are very keen, I think, to ensure that we can get back on the road in autonomous driving mode, in consultation and in close partnership with them," said Miriam Chaum, chief of The direction. public policy regarding autonomous vehicles of Uber.

The company also promised in its reports to reduce the delay between the moment when the sensors of its autonomous vehicle locate a person or an object and the measures taken by its computer system. Uber said that he had improved the performance of his system so he could better predict what a person, a vehicle or other object would do when approaching the autonomous vehicle.

"We are now able to detect objects and actors faster and execute safe reactions faster," the company said.

Reserve drivers will now be asked about security before hiring. They will also be monitored by a camera in real time to make sure they are attentive, Zych said. The company, he said, has worked hard to make the Volvo brake system work together with the Uber autopilot system.

Although Uber has announced a partnership with Toyota to develop autonomous vehicles, only Uber's system would be active in Pittsburgh, said Zych.

The company, he said, wants to retake the tests in a "responsible" way and is not thinking of transporting passengers with autonomous vehicles for the moment. If approved, the company will start slowly in Pittsburgh with a small number of vehicles, Zych said.

In the Tempe crash, the police wrote in a report that the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, was broadcasting the musical talent show via Hulu in the 43 minutes prior to the Herzberg assassination. According to the report, the accident would not have occurred if the driver had not been distracted.

Police in Tempe are considering a manslaughter charge in the vehicle, according to an affidavit dated March 19 seeking a search warrant for audio, video and data files stored in the Uber SUV. A prosecutor has not yet taken a decision in this case.

Carolyn Said, editor of the Chronicle newspaper, contributed to this report.