The role of autonomous vehicles in transportation equity in Tempe, Arizona

In 2016, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that human error is involved in 94–96% of all motor vehicle crashes. Also in 2016, Bonnefon et al. predicted that autonomous vehicles could eliminate 90% of traffic collisions due to their elimination of human error. However, questions of safety, accessibility, and social equity have arisen after the first pedestrian death by an autonomous vehicle in its testing phase occurred in Tempe, AZ, in 2018. This project analyzes how social equity issues shape the discussion, creation, and implementation of governmental policies and regulations surrounding driverless automobiles in Tempe, using policy and text analysis as well as semi-structured interviews of government officials or residents of Tempe. Informed by the concept of the right to the city and critical legal studies, this research suggests that public policy around autonomous vehicles does create new and expand existing spaces for inequality in Tempe. This is exacerbated by increased awareness of inequality within Arizona’s autonomous vehicle regulation scheme and its entire transportation system after the first pedestrian death by autonomous vehicle.