I have to get out NOW from my autonomous vehicle: urgent egress and passenger overrides

What if you need to get out of the vehicle RIGHT NOW in a robotaxi -- is that allowed? What are the implications?

In any automated system there will be times when an occupant wants to override the automation, and especially when they want to exit a moving automated vehicle. Reasons might include: wanting to re-open transit vehicle doors if a passenger was unable to exit in time at their stop; an attack of claustrophobia; wanting to get away from another passenger due to personal safety concerns; or even needing to escape a cabin fire. Some egress requests might constitute misuse or abuse, such as stopping a vehicle to intentionally block traffic, or intentionally accessing an off-limits area such as a bridge with no pedestrian infrastructure.

Creating a complete list of all possible motivations is difficult, and weighing the merits of all such egress attempts in advance seems intractable. Nonetheless, there are times when a passenger desire to exit a moving vehicle should be honored, although the vehicle should likely at least stop before permitting an exit.

In still other situations passengers might want to force an otherwise stopped vehicle to move. One reason might be fear for personal safety if threatened by malicious actors while stopped at a traffic light. Another reason might be overriding a police stop if the vehicle occupant suspects a stopping officer is instead a criminal imposter, at least until legitimacy of the police stop can be confirmed via contact with an emergency dispatcher.[1]

Another special situation is one in which a passenger has a compelling reason to order an AV to operate outside its ODD or with degraded equipment in an emergency, even if doing so will result in a reduced safety margin. For example, an AV might be programmed not to drive through heavy smoke, but doing so might be required to escape a burning town in a wildfire situation. The AV occupant might want to take the chance of driving rather than remaining in the burning town.[2]

Human drivers have the authority to deal with these situations so long as they are willing to accept the responsibility. Do you start driving when someone is trying to forcibly break into your car at a traffic light even if you might injure that malicious actor by doing so? The choice – and responsibility for consequences – falls upon the person driving a manually driven car.

The question is: to what degree should an AV support operator overrides of safety-relevant behaviors? A complication is that there might not be a responsible individual in a vehicle to exercise control. What if a passenger is allowed to override some behaviors of the vehicle, but that passenger is impaired, or not capable of exercising mature judgment? Should an 8 year old riding solo be able to command vehicle safety overrides?[3]

Answers as to how much control a passenger should have over AV operation will depend on how stringent qualifications are for a passenger to be capable of mature decision making. It is easy to say there must be one qualified driver if there are any passengers in an AV and that manual controls must be available if needed. However, requiring a qualified driver undermines the potential benefits that AVs might provide for those who are not capable of driving or should not be driving at a particular time.

If other than unimpaired licensed drivers are permitted to override AV behaviors, there will be difficult tradeoffs as to what overrides might be permitted. Likely an 8 year old child should not be permitted to exit a school vehicle in the middle of a highway to avoid going to school. On the other hand, a 14 year old[4] might be considered mature enough to demand an emergency stop if the vehicle tries to drive into flood waters, or initiate an emergency exit with their younger sibling if the cabin fills with smoke from a vehicle battery fire.

Even if a passenger is an adult licensed to drive, should that adult be permitted to override vehicle behavior if drunk or otherwise impaired? If not, should the vehicle disable override capability if the passenger is drunk? Or should it be illegal to enter an AV with override capability when drunk?

While it can be an interesting exercise to conjure extreme situations, the issue of passenger overrides and egress can also be as simple as a passenger saying “I want to get out now” when the vehicle is stopped at a red traffic light but not at the end of the scheduled trip. Should the passenger be able to unlock doors and exit? Or should the passenger be kept locked inside the vehicle until the end of the trip? Should there be a workaround available such as changing the destination? If so, should the passenger have permission to do this if some authority figure such as a parent input the original destination? Where should the threshold be drawn at which such a passenger request is denied both in context (speeding down a highway vs. stopped) or passenger maturity (a passenger one day before turning 18 years old but with no driver’s license vs. grade school age child)?

There is the possibility that remote operators will need to mediate requests for overriding AV behavior either routinely or if there is doubt as to the competence of passengers to make reasonable decisions. However, any such remote operators can be expensive, will have problems scaling, and might result in wait times long enough to impair safety by delaying decisions in urgent situations.[5]

For AVs to be deployed at scale, designers will need to decide how much authority passengers have to override vehicle behavior, and whether emergency manual vehicle controls will be required even in vehicles that are intended to be completely automated. There will be no perfect policy choice, but not setting a consistent policy is also a policy choice.

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[1] Yes, this is a thing. Report of an accused police imposter pulling over a van full of legitimate police detectives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogGBwrrkKY4

[2] This consideration has become especially relevant for residents of California. See: https://www.insideedition.com/how-drive-through-fire-48422

[3] One might say that no 8 year old should ride in an AV solo. But if that is the case, what exactly is the cut-off age? Some public high school systems rely on public mass transit instead of dedicated school buses, so any AV public transit vehicle will have under-age ridership. Is training or perhaps even a “rider license” required to ride in an AV and use the override controls? This topic gets complex quickly.

[4] Some states issue driver licenses to 14 year-olds in special cases. Would such a driver license be required in this case? See: https://www.thedrive.com/news/39184/americas-rarest-drivers-license-lets-14-year-olds-hit-the-road-legally

[5] The usual solution proposed is remote customer service operators that intervene when needed. Those proposing that passengers need have no control because remote operators can solve all safety problems need to spend more time waiting in customer service phone waiting queues. An additional consideration is the likely disruption to emergency response services during a natural disaster that will also require simultaneous attention to numerous AV passenger distress situations. New Year’s Eve screening of requests from potentially drunk passengers will also be challenging.

Enhanced personal safety for autonomous vehicles

AV safety discussions often get quite technical. But there are aspects of safety that have a lot more to do with personal safety concerns. It is important that AV technology deployments enhance rather than degrade personal safety.

Do autonomous vehicles improve personal safety compared to alternatives?

An important feature of a personally owned human-driven vehicle is having more control over personal safety. A locked private vehicle provides a measure of physical protection against potential threats to personal safety. In a single occupancy conventional vehicle the driver can make personal safety choices beyond the obvious one of not sharing a vehicle with a stranger as would be the case in a taxi or ride-share vehicle.[1] The availability of a single-occupancy AV might extend this safety benefit to those who cannot drive or do not have resources to own a private vehicle.

Example safety choices beyond just riding solo include debarking in an escort-provided portion of a parking lot, selecting routes that seem to present lower personal risk, and deciding not to exit the vehicle at a preselected destination location that turns out to look dangerous. To the degree that a single-occupant AV provides similar personal risk management features, riding solo in an AV might be safer than in a shared vehicle, including one with a human driver.

Personal safety is especially important to more vulnerable demographic segments, particularly when traveling alone, such as women, the elderly, and children. Also potentially at risk are identifiable minority groups in areas prone to abusive behavior based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or other factors. Beyond that, any AV user might have personal safety concerns, especially in areas with high crime rates.

Personal safety on shared AV mass transit vehicles will be an obvious concern as it is with crewed transit. On crewed mass transit the crew members can provide an additional measure of social supervision and deterrence. A potential move to smaller AV shared transit vehicles increases the opportunity for a passenger being isolated with a potential bad actor in a travel module, and complicates remote surveillance by multiplying the number of small passenger compartments being managed rather than fewer large compartments. Supervising dozens or hundreds of people on a single fully automated passenger train seems a more tractable problem (e.g., done with an on-train conductor) than remotely supervising dozens or hundreds of robotaxis shared by strangers.

Beyond the ride itself, there are also safety issues related to waiting for transport arrival and offloading. In particular, it will be important for vulnerable passengers to be able to change their destination at the end of the trip if local conditions at the destination seem too dangerous. Consider a city that requires using designated drop-off points of AV robotaxis. What should a passenger do if they do not like the looks of a group of people, potentially armed, waiting at the stop for them to get out?

A simple argument is to say that every automated low-speed shuttle will have an attendant. While attendants might be desirable and might prove necessary for a variety of reasons, requiring full-time staff on an automated vehicle that is smaller than a mass transit vehicle is largely at odds with the argument that AVs provide economic benefits due to not having to pay a person to be on board.

The question here is: will riding on an automated vehicle be as safe as riding in a vehicle with a human driver from a personal safety point of view?

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[1] A popular meme goes something like this: Years ago we were told not to get into cars with strangers and not to talk to strangers on the Internet. Now we literally contact strangers via the Internet so we can get into their cars.            
While ride-share companies recognize that personal safety is a key issue, and put effort into improving it, personal safety needs more work. See Marshall 2019: https://www.wired.com/story/criminologist-uber-crime-report-highly-alarming/
Also Saddiqui 2021:         
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/22/lyft-safety-report/