SF, other California cities could limit robotaxis, set rates under new bill

When it comes to regulating robotaxi services, state legislators appear to be trying to learn a lesson from the rollout of app-based ride hailing offerings more than a decade ago.

A bill that passed the state senate last month and is now being considered by the state Assembly would allow larger California cities and municipalities that adjoin them the ability to regulate ride services offered via autonomous vehicles.

While not allowing such cities to ban robotaxi services, Senate Bill 915 would explicitly allow them to limit the number of autonomous vehicles those services can have on the roads and set the maximum fares AV companies can charge.

Those are the kinds of regulations cities have long used to govern traditional taxi services but were effectively barred from imposing on companies such as Uber and Lyft .

“We’ve tried to replicate as closely as we can the kinds of day-to-day rules and regulations that we have seen over the years with human-driven taxi services,” Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, the bill’s sponsor, told The Examiner.

Taxi, app-based ride hailing and robotaxi services “are just corporate business models,” he continued, “and they should be treated with as much parity as possible — but they also need to be regulated a little bit too.” Cortese said.

The robotaxi industry vehemently opposes the bill. In a statement, Jeff Farrah, the CEO of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, charged that the legislation would lead to a “patchwork” of regulations around the state that would stifle innovation.

“SB 915 will put the brakes on AVs’ progress in California,” Farrah said. The bill, he continued, is “equivalent to requiring a different driver’s license for different cities.”

Currently, the Department of Motor Vehicles regulates autonomous vehicles, certifying whether they can drive on state roads. The California Public Utilities Commission regulates robotaxi services, including where they can be offered and whether companies can charge for them.

The bill, which Cortese introduced in January, would allow — but not require — cities with at least 250,000 residents to set their own rules for operating robotaxi services within their borders. It would give similar power to cities that adjoin those big municipalities. However, those smaller cities would be limited to passing ordinances that were essentially the same as those of their larger neighbors.

For example, Bay Area cities that would be allowed to put in place robotaxi rules include San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Daly City, but likely not Palo Alto or Fremont.

SB 915 would allow such cities to limit the number of autonomous vehicles operated by such services so they don’t significantly increase traffic.

While allowing robotaxi companies to determine how they charge for their services — whether as a flat rate, say, or a per-mile fare — the bill would permit cities to set limits on those rates. The bill would also allow cities to set fines or disciplinary actions when the companies’ autonomous vehicles violate traffic or parking laws. SB 915 would allow municipalities to charge fees to robotaxi companies to support the implementation of the local laws governing them.

Additionally, the bill would allow airports to regulate the operation of such services on their grounds and to charge fees to robotaxi operators.

The bill would also require robotaxi companies to make their services available to people in wheelchairs, either by adding accessible vehicles to their fleets or contracting with another business. And it would mandate that robotaxi operators include a mechanism in their vehicles that would allow first responders to take control of them in emergencies.

The state has long recognized that cities need the ability to regulate taxi and related services around airports, schools and in downtowns, Cortese said.

Those are the kinds of places “that you start running into real issues if you try to go laissez faire with this kind of a corporate business model,” he said.

But that’s essentially what the state did with ride-hailing services. Soon after Uber, Lyft and erstwhile competitor Sidecar launched their offerings, the CPUC assumed regulatory control over their services, classifying them as “transportation network companies.”

Despite having nominal control over such companies and the fact they competed with traditional taxi services, CPUC subjected such companies to much lighter regulations than taxi companies. Most notably, it didn’t set rates for ride-hailing services and didn’t restrict the number of cars or drivers on the road — or allow local jurisdictions to do so.

The result, according to numerous studies , was increased traffic . The loose rules also decimated local taxi businesses and brought about fares that typically spiked with demand.

Representatives of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which would likely regulate robotaxi service in The City under SB 915, were not immediately available for comment. A CPUC representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Given how the state handled the ride-hailing business, the fact that the legislature is now seriously considering giving cities the ability to regulate robotaxi services is “astonishing” and welcome, said Evelyn Engel, an executive board member of the San Francisco Taxi Workers Allowances.

“It could be that this whole era of believing these private companies like Uber are going to solve all of our problems —maybe that era is finally coming to a close,” Engel said.

It’s unclear whether Gov. Newsom would sign the bill if it passes the state Assembly. Diana Crofts-Pelayo, the governor’s spokeswoman, declined to comment because the legislation is still pending.

SB 915 comes as autonomous vehicles and robotaxi services have come under increased scrutiny. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the safety records of all three major providers of such services: Waymo, Cruise, and Zoox.

The CPUC and DMV suspended Cruise’s permits for its AV fleet and its robotaxi service after one of the company’s vehicles ran over a woman last October and dragged her 20 feet .

Cruise spokeswoman Hannah Lindow declined to say what Cruise’s position is on SB 915. Instead, in a statement, she said the company is focused on safety and plans to participate in discussions about policies related to autonomous vehicles.

The General Motors-owned company is “committed to engaging with regulators and stakeholders at all levels of government to help bring the benefits of autonomous vehicle technology to communities,” Lindown said in the statement.

Cortese’s legislation would reduce the number of transportation offerings for state residents, Waymo spokeswoman Anjelica Price-Rocha said in a statement.

The bill “imposes unnecessary hurdles on a service already embraced by hundreds of thousands of residents,” she said.

Zoox spokeswoman Whitney Jencks declined to comment on SB 915, directing inquiries to the industry association.