Just a day after release
Ten broken-down robotic taxis block an intersection in San Francisco – the operator blames the festival
The cruise cars roll through the streets of San Francisco as fully automatic taxis
© Cruise / Manufacturer
Just a few days ago, San Francisco opened up its streets to self-driving taxis during the day as well. There was a road blockade on Friday night.
Nothing works anymore. Several cars stand still in the narrow streets of San Francisco, and the cars also block each other at the intersection. But while such a blockade with human drivers might still be solvable by agreement, Friday night was in The traffic jam in San Francisco could not be resolved: ten of the cars involved simply had no driver. And had given up the autonomous driving spirit in the middle of the street. Just a day after the city was widely cleared to operate autonomous taxis.
According to the operator, there is a simple reason why the taxis from the service provider Cruise simply stopped: They had lost their Internet connection, the company told the local newspaper “San Francisco Chronicle”. Because of a music festival taking place nearby, the mobile phone connections were overloaded by the high number of logged-in devices, the police also confirmed. “We are working on solutions so that something like this doesn’t happen again,” Cruise assured.
Bad timing
The fact that it happened on Friday of all days should not suit the company. Cruise cars have occasionally broken down in the past, and entire streets have been blocked (find out more here). On Friday, however, the attention was a whole lot bigger: In a quite controversial decision, the responsible authority decided to expand the operation of the robot taxis from Cruise and the competitor Waymo, which belongs to the Google Group Alphabet, from a limited test phase and generally release them. Previously, both were only allowed to offer their services at night and in certain parts of the city.
A situation like that on Friday could have happened in the past. Due to the Outside Lands Festival, large crowds were gathered in a small space, after the end of the concert many wanted to leave the area. Classic taxis were also hard to come by. According to the “San Francisco Standard”, ride-sharing services such as Uber charged prices of up to $150 for a ride due to the extreme demand. No wonder, then, that numerous autonomous taxis were also called into the area. And then suffered from the connection problems caused by the huge number of mobile phone subscribers.
That was annoying for law enforcement. According to the “standard”, other company cars were also stuck in other side streets, some including the passengers. Apparently, one of the police officers on site managed to take over one of the cars and drive out of the way. However, he failed with several other cars.
Anger of the law enforcement officers about robot taxis
The security forces first had to fight for the robot taxis to offer a way to override the self-driving mode. Again and again, the self-propelled vehicles blocked important operations, whether by breaking down or because they simply did not make room for rescue vehicles. They are even said to have simply driven through barrier tapes from operations (find out more here). The head of San Francisco’s fire department, Jeanine Nicholson, had already sounded the alarm in June. “We urgently need to fix the bugs before they are rolled out any further,” she told the Los Angeles Times at the time.
The city itself saw it that way. In January, the city council wrote a fire letter to the California Transportation Authority. The clear demand: to refrain from a general release of the services. “We prefer a slow rollout with gradual expansions instead of unlimited permission,” explained the letter, which was also signed by the city’s two top traffic officers. Without success: On Thursday, the authority had waved through the application of the two companies. You may now use an unlimited number of cars in the streets of the city.
Sources:san francisco chronicle, Sto Francisco Standard, LA Times, Complaint to the traffic authority.