San Francisco Government SmartTranscripts:

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. This meeting will come to order. Welcome to the 03/02/2026, regular meeting of the Land Use and Transportation Committee of the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco. I am Supervisor Myrna Melgar, Chair of the Committee, joined by Vice Chair Supervisor Chyanne Chen, and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood. The committee clerk today is John Carroll. I would also like to thank James Kawana from SFgov TV for supporting us during this meeting. Mr. Clerk, would do you have any announcements?

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Please ensure that you've silenced your cell phones and other electronic devices you've brought with you into the chamber today. If you have any documents to be included as part of any of today's files, can submit them to me. Public comment will be taken on each of the two items on today's agenda. When your item of interest comes up and public comment is called for that item, please line up to speak along your right hand side of this room. Alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing in either of the following ways. First, you may send your comments to me via email at johnperiodcarroll@sfgov.org. Or you may send your written comments via U. Postal Service to our office in City Hall. The address is 1 Doctor Carlton B Goodlett Place Room 244 San Francisco California 94102. If you submit public comment in writing, I will forward your comments to the members of this committee, I'll also include your comments as part of the official file on which you are speaking. By special arrangement, we have David Cruz here from Intergraphics to provide interpretive services for members of the public who want to give public comment in Spanish. I'd like to briefly open the floor to David Cruz so he can give a bit of instruction about how to utilize his services.

[David Cruz (Spanish Interpreter, Intergraphics)]: Thank you. If you need interpret I will be giving this in English and Spanish. If you need interpretation from English and Spanish, given that we don't have equipment available, please sit at the back corner on the left. That way I can whisper interpretation do whisper interpretation during the session.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much mister Cruz and finally madam chair items acted upon today are expected to appear on the 03/10/2026 agenda unless otherwise stated.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you mister clerk let's start by calling item number one.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Agenda item number one is a resolution approving and authorizing a grant for a permanent easement on San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's property located at 1800 Gerald Avenue consisting of an easement of approximately 2,944 square feet of land within sfpu c Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant between the city and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company for the purpose of replacing and relocating SFPUC's existing solids treatment facilities at its Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant with more reliable, efficient, and modern technologies and facilities at no cost for a term effective upon approval of this resolution and recordation recordation of the agreement by the city's office of the assessor recorder pursuant to charter section nine point one hundred and eighteen. And until p g and e serve surrenders or abandons the easement area or the agreement is terminated. Determining that the grant of the easement at no cost will serve a public you purpose by delivering an increased natural gas supply to s f p u c's existing South East water pollution control plant and its new biosolids digesters facilities. In accordance with administrative code 23 dot 30, adopting findings of consistency with the general plan, the eight party policies, planning code section one and one point one, and directing the director of property to execute documents make certain modifications and take certain actions and furtherance of the resolution as defined within the resolution text madam chair

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: thank you so much mister clerk we are joined at today by at dean of Brazil from the SFPUC who will make a presentation. Welcome.

[Aideen Brazil (SFPUC staff)]: Thank you. Thank you, supervisors. Good afternoon. The item before you today is a grant of easement to PG and E for a natural gas meter station that will serve the SFPUC exclusively. The SFPUC is in construction on its biosolids digesters facilities project, which replaces and relocates the existing solids treatment facilities at the Southeast plant. The new biosolids facilities require an increased supply of natural gas, which requires a new connection. The new connection needs a new gas meter station which consists of above ground piping enclosed by a perimeter fence. There is no public utility easement or any area within the public right of way where this meter station could be cited so we agreed to locate it near the existing meter station that will be replaced through this process. Because the Southeast plant is a secure facility it' important that it be located somewhere with direct access from the street Because the facility will be on what is effectively private property and not within a public utility easement or right of way, pg and e requires that it be granted an easement at no charge before construction can begin. The proposed site of the pg and e meter station is adjacent to Gerald Avenue near the intersection with Quince Street which you're able to see in the location map that I included in your materials. Pg and e requires approximately 2,944 square feet for its meter station as well as the right to excavate construct reconstruct replace remove maintain inspect and use the meter station facilities. We worked with the real estate team at the city attorney's office to negotiate the form of easement deed before you today which is in its final form. It will need to be fully executed and recorded prior to construction. The city administrative code requires that we appraise the fair market value of any real property we seek to convey. In this case because the conveyance would be at no cost to pg and e the board must find that the easement furthers a proper public purpose sufficient to meet San Francisco administrative code section 23.3 the market value requirements. The facilities that will be installed under the easement deed are necessary for the operation of the city southeast treatment plant and they will serve the sfpuc exclusively. At this time id be happy to take any questions you have about the item.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you so much Ms. Brazil I don' see anyone on the roster with questions or comments thank you for the presentation it' pretty straightforward. At that being said let's go to public comment on this item please mr.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Clerk. Thank you madam chair land use and transportation will now hear public comments specifically for agenda item number one if you have public comment for this item please come forward to the lectern at this time. Madam Chair, it appears we have no speakers for this item.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Okay. Public comment on this item is now closed. Mr. Clerk, I'm going to make a motion that we send this out of this committee with a positive recommendation to the full board.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: On the motion offered by the chair that this resolution be recommended to the board of supervisors vice chair Chen. Chen aye member Mahmood aye chair Melgar

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: aye

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Melgar aye madam chair there are three ayes

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: that motion passes thank you mr clerk please call item number two

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: agenda item number two is a hearing to discuss the impact of the December 2025 power outages on the transportation network and waymo autonomous vehicles

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: okay before I turn it over to the hearing sponsor supervisor mahmood I also want to welcome supervisor wang representing District 4 to this committee thank you for joining us today And thank you to both of you for making this hearing happen. So over to you. The floor is yours.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you, Chair Melgar. On December 20, a circuit breaker at a PG and E substation in SoMa malfunctioned, sparking a blaze that impacted electricity across several major sections of San Francisco. The rain conspired with dark traffic lights and eventually dark street lights to create a difficult situation for anyone trying to get around the city. This power outage was especially meaningful to autonomous vehicles, which seemed to have trouble with navigating many of these dark intersections. The best way to talk about this incident is to see for ourselves what happened on our streets. SFGovtv, can we play the video? From SoMa to the Richmond and Chinatown to the Haight, San Franciscans captured videos of vehicles stopped at intersections. We can even see fire trucks and muni buses stuck behind helpless Waymos. The stoppages that made it on social media, though, are just the tip of the iceberg. In total, according to waymo's own data submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission, there were 1,593 stoppages during the outage period in the affected area. These stoppages are events where vehicles were stopped for two minutes or more without human assistance. In as many as 64 of these incidents, manual retrieval was required to move cars out of the way. Autonomous cars are no longer just an experiment. During the outage, Waymo operated over 829 vehicles in the affected area. Having hundreds of connected vehicles sharing a single driving platform is a technological miracle and has promising upside potential for street safety. Out on the streets outside right now are hundreds of vehicles moving about the city like Cinderella's magical carriages. But just like in the fairy tale, we can now see that those carriages can turn into pumpkins at the drop of a hat. It became clear during the power outage that the nature of autonomous vehicle fleet deployment represents a unique and potentially unprecedented vulnerability to the urban transportation and emergency response systems of San Francisco. As more vehicles are deployed, more companies enter the market, and more emergencies unfortunately befall San Francisco, we need to be clear about what we as a city expect from AVs. Waymo's are sharing the roads with private vehicles, minibuses, taxis, and fire engines, All of which are operated by licensed and trained human beings who know how to pull over to the side of the road if there are emergency vehicles coming or if for whatever reason they can no longer operate the vehicle. We need to know what these vehicles can play by the rules. And in the rare situations where they don't, our first responders aren't spending valuable time during a crisis on hold with a call center trying to move an empty car. Unfortunately, the city cannot regulate Waymo or any other autonomous vehicle company. Waymo is here of their own volition in an extremely rare visit to a local government body. And I thank them in advance for answering our questions. There's three main outcomes that I wanna see from this hearing today. One, San Franciscans deserve to know what exactly happened on the streets during the outage in December 2025. Two, I want Waymo to begin working proactively with our city's emergency response apparatus on emergency planning to become a global model for AV safety. We need to learn what happened here and make sure it never happens again. Three, I want the regulators, the CPUC, and DMV, and our representatives in Sacramento to watch this hearing and understand the need to strengthen regulations around emergency response and preparedness. Lastly, I know there's a lot of opinions right now on Waymo and the future of transportation, and a lot in the audience as well. And it's a worthy discussion. But I do want to remind folks that the focus of today's hearing is just on the power outage and Waymo's emergency response to that outage in December 2025. And so all questions and comments today must be focused on that incident. And I ask the colleagues and members of the public do the same. We'll begin by discussing the incident with first responders and then transportation agencies before hearing from waymo themselves on what went wrong and what's being done to improve outcomes and safety. Want to thank everyone coming from the respective departments, from Waymo, and from the public. We'll first hear from my colleagues, if anyone's on the roster, their perspectives. And then we'll hear from Department of Emergency Management. Supervisor Chen.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Mahmood, for convening this hearing. When the power outage occurred in San Francisco in December, chaos hit many of our residents, small business, and community institutions. This instance exposed our vulnerability for when interruption to our power system occurred. Building out our infrastructure system to build a safer and more resilient future is critical because we know that we will continue to have some other unseen incidents or, god forbid, more severe disasters. Like it or not, autonomous vehicle are one part of the system. Even before the December blockouts, autonomous vehicle demonstrated some operation challenges, including instance where they have to lay emergency responders, block traffics, and create a safety hazard for pedestrians and other vehicles. In a in a natural disaster like an earthquake, flood, or fire, hundreds of our frozen robot techs could block emergency responders, putting lives at risk. During the December power outage, when Waymo, which operates about a thousand robot techs in San Francisco, suspended services on Saturday evening after many of its vehicle inexplicably stopped at the interaction intersections during the power outage, added to more chaos. And I hope this hearing will continue to help us to better understand what went wrong and what let and what challenge what lessons and changes that we need to move on from now. Thank you.

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: The December outages were a clear reminder of how critical reliability is in a city like ours. When traffic signals go dark, when power is lost across multiple neighborhoods, and when first responders are navigating unpredictable intersections, every part of our transportation network matters. In those moments, our systems need to be steady, coordinated, and predictable. Residents are trying to get home. Businesses are trying to stay open. Firefighters and paramedics are trying to reach emergencies quickly and safely. Events like this underscore an important principle. New technology must integrate seamlessly into our public safety infrastructure, especially during disruptions. The standard is not how systems perform on a normal day. The standard is how they perform when conditions are strained. We have seen reports of vehicles stopping intersections, delays in clearing roadways, and confusion around communication. When power fails, artificial intelligence does not improvise. It does not use judgment. It follows programming and that is precisely why human workers matter. Our firefighters, police officers, paramedics, traffic control work officers, and emergency managers are trained to adapt in real time. They assess risk. They communicate with one another. They make judgment calls under pressure. Technology should support that work, not complicate it. AI systems are tools. They are not decision makers. They're not substitute for human experience. When those systems cannot respond flexibly during a crisis, the burden falls back on public servants to manage their consequences. In District 4, we rely heavily on corridors like 19th Avenue, Sunset Boulevard, and Lincoln Way. During outages or major disruptions, there are limited alternate routes in and out of our neighborhoods. If vehicles vehicles are immobilized in key corridors, that has real impacts on response times and public safety in the Western parts of the city. This hearing is not about opposing innovation. Autonomous vehicles can be part of San Francisco's transportation future. But innovation must come with responsibility, safeguards, and clear accountability. If vehicles cannot be moved quickly during a crisis, that is a systems gap. If communication with emergency management is delayed, that is coordination gap. Those gaps must be closed before we scale further. San Franciscans expect that in a major emergency, autonomous fleets will support our public safety network, not strain it. Today, I'm looking for clear answers, such as finding out how such immobilized vehicles can be cleared from critical corridors, how vehicles were stalled, and what changes have been implemented that ensures this does not happen again during a major disaster such as an earthquake. We owe it to our residents and to our frontline workers to get this right. Thank you.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you. I want to first thank Supervisor Mahmood and Supervisor Wong for this hearing. I also am appreciative of all the city departments that are here with us today, the Department of Emergency Management, Fire, MTA, the Transportation Authority, and SFO. And of course, WEMO. Thank you for coming. Since my colleagues originally called for this hearing, there's been additional information that we have gathered because of the respective filings from our agencies and the CPUC and Waymo at the CPUC so we have a little bit better understanding every day about what happened and also where we're going with this. I still have important questions, as do others. Thank you for clarifying the intent of this hearing, supervisor. And we need to understand what happened on December 20, what has been done to address the causes, to identify critical next steps, to prevent something similar from happening in the future. The fact is, as Supervisor Wong pointed out, AVs are now part of our transportation system. And that has implications for our public transportation, for our emergency response, for people on our streets trying to get around, and also for the workforce of transportation. And that is important for us to take into account. Ideally, we can turn these events into lessons learned and into something positive and constructive where we can work together. And where we, as legislators, can move towards a regulatory infrastructure that works. And whatever is not within our jurisdiction, we can point out and work with others to do that. Today, we're going to be hearing the accounts of both the agencies and Waymo and also the public as to how we experience these events. We have allocated time to discuss next steps. And I thank you again, Supervisor Mahmood. And I hope today is a productive discussion. So back to you.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you, Chair Melgar. First, I'd like to call up Department Emergency Management Director Mary Ellen Carroll, and Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit from the Fire Department. Thank you for being here. Starting off, just wanted to thank you again, both for all of your work during that day, and that entire weekend, in serving our city, in both addressing the fire and making sure getting the power back up. We would not have been able to get that done without you, and really appreciative of all workers who been helped in that day.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank Hold on. Ms. Carol, just before you start, we do have overflow set up in Room 263 because we're at capacity here. So if more folks want to come in, we will just direct them to Room 263. And as folks move off after public comment, we can keep it flowing. Thank you.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you, Chair. Starting off with Director, just wanted to walk us through we saw some of the videos earlier today of stalled vehicles and then also the videos of fire trucks that were stalled as well. Can you describe the process on that day of connecting with Waymo during the outage, what it was like for your staff and what that Sure. Experience was

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: I had just a brief kind of opening that lays it out, if that's Okay. I can go through that, and then we can dig into details if I don't cover them. Again, good afternoon. Thank you, Supervisors Mary Ellen Carroll, the director for the Department of Emergency Management. As you acknowledge, we had a power outage on December 20 that was significant across our city. I, on that day, was at the Emergency Operations Center really shortly after the outage started. And our department coordinated efforts to respond to all the impacts of this outage and then also ones that came later and days later over the holidays from storms. So it was about five days of outages for our city over the Christmas holiday. We I'll just jump into the the day of. So, on the twentieth, we had we almost kind of immediately started experiencing issues with the AV fleet. We were hearing about them mostly due to travel light outages and the and the chaos that the outage caused, if anyone was out there, just as the city went dark, the streets just kind of went into gridlock. Between about three and eight p. M. On that day, our dispatch center did receive multiple reports of issues involving AVs. And we experienced significant delays in connecting with Waymo. Our dispatchers were placed on hold for long periods of time and made a total of 31 calls to Waymo to the Waymo first responder hotline over that period. One of our staff members was on the hotline for fifty three minutes on hold. I was actually on the 911 Floor, and I can assure that we were having those delays in connection. Eventually, we did make contact, and the fleet was, on that day, eventually completely removed from service. In some cases, fire assisted with clearing vehicles, and Chief Robert will go into more detail on that. You know, in the week following, we did meet with our Waymo representatives. We talked about the issues that we experienced. And, subsequently, for Super Bowl week, we had a WAMO representative at our emergency operations center, which was very helpful to deal in real time with those issues as they came up. You know, I just I want to say that, you know, autonomous vehicle technology is new to our city. It's new technology. And we are obviously learning how it will how it performs or will perform under emergency circumstances. I definitely stay awake at night thinking about things that could happen and how do we integrate this new technology, which is a physical presence on our streets, into our emergency response. And so we are actively doing that, and we are in conversation with Waymo. We do know that there are other companies that are waiting to come online, and so it is so imperative that we deal with these issues, exercise, run through scenarios, and learn everything we can on how to expect the technology to perform and also how to mitigate those interruptions, those disruptions, and impact to public safety when these things happen.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you, Director. And thank you for walking us through that timeline as well. So basically, you're walking through between three and eight you were getting reports from AVs, then you were on hold up to fifty three minutes by one dispatcher. When was contact finally established? What time during the day?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: We basically, so I well, I will say this also. The mayor was present at the EOC also and made phone calls to executive level at Waymo. And he was able to get that contact pretty immediately. I don't have the exact time of those calls.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Would it be safe to say there was a couple hours after trying Yes. To contact

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: And the thing is that we I think we can what I can assume is that as the outage grew and as we know, it grew far and wide and very quickly there was a lot of issues on the street. And our assumption is that, the emergency number there was just overwhelmed at Waymo. Running the nine eleven dispatcher center, obviously, we were getting a lot of calls at that time also.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Got it. Combined question might be for either Fire or yourself as well. Given there were stalled vehicles in the field, what ability do the public safety officers in the field or other city resources have to deal with disabled vehicles if they find them?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: Yeah, I'm going to let Chief Rabbit speak to

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: that. Good afternoon, chair Melgar, supervisor Chen, supervisor Mahmood, and supervisor Wong. I'm Patrick Rabbit, the deputy chief of operations for the fire department. I'm here to discuss any answer any questions you have on our response with AVs. Supervisor Mahmood, I believe you just asked regarding how we interact on scene. There is a communication available to us with the vehicle. Should they stall or should we come upon scene, we can make a voice communication to an operator remotely requesting assistance, what our specific needs are specifically to have that vehicle either move directly from emergency scene or to proceed on their route Sometimes we do not get invoice communication quickly, but at times the AV operator is unable to move the vehicle for us remotely and then they will put the vehicle into a manual mode where one of our department personnel can safely operate the vehicle and remove it from the actual scene.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Understood. Let's get maybe into specifics in this context then. There was an incident just outside of the substation fire Mission Street. Can you walk us through what happened there with a purportedly stalled vehicle? And what was that communication process like that you just described in this context?

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: So related to the fire at the substation, one of our department personnel encountered a vehicle that was encroaching our scene. Now, prior to the actual call at the substation at 02:17 p. M. And avoid the area, alert was sent from our dispatch center, noting to avoid the area of the Mission Street and Stephenson Street area for 1,500 feet. When our department employee came across the Waymo vehicle at this incident. We have no timeline or data entry into the CAD. This was a firefighter not specifically trained very well on using their portable handheld radio. They just went to mitigate the hazard. They did get in touch with the Waymo remote operator, and then they did initially take control of the vehicle and move it safely away from the actual fire ground incident. Took that member roughly five or six minutes off task to assist with the removal of the vehicle from the scene.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Understood. So, it took them about it delayed their response by about five to six minutes and be able to access the area.

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: They were on scene already. Sorry, I'll clarify. Our personnel were already on scene operating at the substation. However, the Waymo was within the Avoid the Area, encroaching on our scene. And for safety reasons, firefighter from our department went and addressed the Waymo personally.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Understood. Did that delay or affect any response to addressing the fire in any capacity had that incident not been occurring? What would have happened counterfactually?

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: That member would have been remained intact with his crew for company integrity. It was just that member was taken off his specific task at the time of investigating the actual report of the fire at the substation.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Understood. In your experience, how do Weymos operate around sirens when compared to other humans in responding to different emergency vehicles as well?

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: I don't have much experience. I'm not on a code three vehicle right now in my administrative role. But prior to arriving at my current assignment, I was assigned as division chief in the Mission District covering the South Half of the city. They the AVs typically will yield when they see the flashing red lights. They will instinctively, with their programming, pull over and yield the vehicular right of way to the emergency responding apparatus.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Understood. Question for both you and Director Carroll. What would you like to see from Waymo and other AV operators to lessen the impact of such events in the future?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: I will share a few things and then answer that question. So, we did have, in addition to fire response, a number of incidents where PD had to move the vehicle or have the vehicle towed, one at Geary And Spruce, one at Park Presidio and Crossover, which, as we know, is a pretty significant intersection, Lincoln And 34th. We had North Point and Mason, and a couple of others. In these cases, SFPD was able to either make contact, remove the vehicle, or move the vehicle themselves, or have it towed. I think the biggest concern overall I can share from a public safety perspective and I'll defer to the chief on fire is that what has started to happen is that our public safety officers and responders are having to be the ones to physically move. In a sense, they're becoming a default assistance, roadside assistance, for these vehicles, which we do not think is tenable. We are having these conversations with Waymo Because obviously, that is time away from whatever it is that the first responders are responding to. And in this case, there was plenty to respond to. In addition, anything that brings a high volume of calls to 911 around these kind of things can delay response. It can delay our call time for people that have true life and death situations. So those are the things, I think, that is a concern that I have. I think the other and those are day to day things, let's put it that way, as we have emergencies that escalate. And then the other is just thinking about other scenarios. If we had major flooding, if we had an earthquake, things that would interrupt our transportation infrastructure. These are physical modes of transportation, vehicles that are on the ground. And so really thinking about what that means, how they'll perform, and, you know, how we'll work together with these companies when these things happen.

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: All right. Supervisor Mahmood, I'd like to just explain and avoid the area before I put forward our request. I think it'll help clarify. But when the avoid the areas are sent to our AV companies and Waymo, These are sent for incidents where our members are most likely going to be operating on the street. For instance, for a report of a fire in the building, the ATA request is 1,500 feet.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: To a report of the fire

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: of fire in the building, we'll send 11 apparatus, and they all converge on that scene. And that's due to the density of our city and the predominantly wood frame construction. Other incidents, we scale back the 80 the avoid the areas to 1,000 feet. But other incidents where we do work on the street are motor vehicle accidents, vehicle fires, shootings, and stabbings. We do send significant resources there, but not as many for a report of a structure fire. Our department would just like to work with the AV engineers to teach our to teach to assist them in teaching their vehicles how our response patterns go for these, and as well as build out the notifications to their vehicles directly from our computer aided dispatch system at Turk Street. Thank you, Doctor. Chief.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Colleagues, any questions for emergency management? Supervisor Wong,

[Hector Castellanos (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: go ahead. Yes.

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: Thank you. And some of these questions relate to Waymo. So if you feel that you want to defer to Waymo, feel free to let me know. But I just want to get from your perspective as well. As far as we are aware, what protocols are triggered by Waymo during a citywide power outage or any emergency like that?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: I think we should defer to Waymo about what their protocols are.

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: Okay. And then how quickly can the city move and mobilize Waymo vehicles to be cleared from critical corridors? Do we have to coordinate with them, or couldn't the city do something independently of them?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: I mean, the way that we've described up to now, there is the ability for this interaction to happen with first responders so that they can go in, take control of the vehicle, have that vehicle removed remotely if that function is happening, or to be towed. And, you know, these are we don't have big capability to do that at any given time.

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: And, Supervisor Wong, to further Director Carroll's response, during the outage, the fire department responds to roughly four fifty calls a day, all hazards, fire, EMS emergencies. But for that twenty four hour period, we experienced over 800. And I know a lot of our other partner agencies in the city were just as busy responding. So at times, it may be very difficult to get a police officer or a parking control officer or even a tow out of the yard to get a attend to a vehicle. Okay.

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: And have we gotten any information on how many vehicles were stalled that night that are blocking critical corridors?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: I think we should I don't have that number. And maybe Waymo can talk about

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: Got it. Okay. The other thing is I understand that for the remote vehicle operators, for Waymo vehicles, they're based 8,000 miles away from San Francisco. In an emergency, how could that impact our communication with Waymo and clearing vehicles off the street or being able to do anything to ensure that they're responsive? Does that hurt our ability to respond to disasters?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: I mean, think that's just an example of the things that we are trying to run through, scenarios that we want to run through. And I would direct the question more you know, WAMA, what their resources are. But there are questions that I think we have to address. If we have a cyber outage, if there's, you know, power outage we obviously saw there were issues. There could be issues, you know, if there's issues with the network or the systems that they have. And, you know, as far as a question that we have put forward, and as I mentioned, a concern, we don't want to have to rely on our first responders who are here to, you know, serve a particular role in law enforcement, fire, or medical to be moving another company's car.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you. Supervisor Chen.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Supervisor Mahmood. Director Carol, you mentioned about how high volumes of call related to Waymo incidents would impact our system. So do you know what was the volume of calls that were made to 911 related to the disruption with Waymo during the power outage period?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: Yeah. We had 63 calls that referenced Waymo within that period of time.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: So how much of those 63 calls caught up with the system?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: I'm sorry. I didn't

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: How much did the volume, like the 63 calls, caught up the system?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: Well, as the chief said, we had a very high spike of calls during that time. So that was on top of the additional calls that we were getting for alarms, for stuck elevators, for other people that were just frustrated and stuck on the road. So I don't have the percentage. We can probably look that up, get that to you. But all in all, was a very busy day. And that was 63 additional calls during that time.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: And I know you both talked a little bit about the staffing capacity. But if in case, what would be the financial resources that were needed in order to help resolve some of those issues that was created by Wimbledon during that time?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: We haven't considered you know, we haven't quantified, like, this cost us x amount of money. I think the bigger issue is just the time that it took for a dispatch supervisor to be on hold for almost an hour when they have other jobs to do. And, you know, the first responders that were in the field that are paid by the city and county to, you know, do their job. And they were and in that day, their job was to deal with these vehicles that were stuck.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: VANILA Thank you.

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: CHIEF Chair Melgar?

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: VANILA Thank you so much. Thank you for the presentation. So we looked at the report that the MTA filed at the CPUC. And we noticed at least three more incidents that you didn't talk about. The response from the firefighters to the original substation fire at 218 encountered an AV blocking traffic. And that there was some time having and that was the original incident, right? And then there was an ambulance near Anatoma And 7th Street at 05:14 that was stopped by a disabled AV. That was a forty minute delay from what I read or that was reported. And then a fire on St. Louis Alley and Grant Avenue. Again, another the dispatcher was on hold for twenty one minutes. So I'm just bringing this up because in your presentations, you both talked about, like, the the reports. It was 311, 911, some MTA. So you're responding to complaints. But that's not comprehensive, right? I mean, there's folks, especially in low income neighborhoods or when things are really critical that don't call and you just don't know what's going on. So I'm wondering if you have any thoughts going forward about recommendations of what else to do. Is there any way that we can use our automated cameras, for example? Or anything else that you can think of where we could get a more comprehensive information of what's going on when this, critical thing is happening?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: It is possible. I mean, we can talk to PD about those things, I mean, as far as the cameras that we have throughout the city. The you know, I you're absolutely right. We don't get all of the incidents that are happening in the street are not recorded or called into 911 specifically. You know, we did not present to you the comprehensive everything that happened here, just for -Sure. -in the interest of time. And so, you know, we do feel like we do obviously, we helped inform that report for MTA, working very closely with them and really trying to come together within the city to share from, you know, a public safety perspective where we would like to inform any regulatory recommendations. And again, as we laid out, you know, I think that we understand that AVs are here. And as long as they are, and particularly if they continue to grow, it is critical for us to understand how they're going to perform and identify the areas that we see as weaknesses, one of which is just the I think what we've seen is that there is not an in person, not a human body to come out and address these issues, and that is left to the city responders to do. And that, in a major emergency, is going to be critical and impact life safety. And so Sure. It's

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Yeah. And because we are limited in our regulatory jurisdiction over this thing, I'm trying to think of ways where we could use what we have to reach accountability, given that folks know, Waymo is reporting to the CPUC. It may be comprehensive report. It may not be. And I'm wondering how we can double check it. But also, how do we, as public agencies that already have our hands full during a critical emergency, make the best use of information in real time, ease of communication and activity? Because I can see waiting for somebody to call 311, call 911 before a firefighter can get in and respond to a critical fire that's happening right now, versus having an easier way of communication that's electronic or that is upfront required, you know, short of that? This is the reason I'm asking. Just because it seems to me like the things that we've heard, the things that people happen to capture on video and put on Instagram is like, a partial telling of what happened. And then there's everything else. And we should be building the system regulatorily for everything else, it seems. So I don't know if you have any thoughts terms of fire in terms of what else we could do for responding.

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: Yes thank you chair Melgar related to those three incidents the two incidents that involve the structure fires at the substation and the other one in St. Louis Alley, our department uses an internal reporting system on autonomous vehicles so we could track how many of these are coming up, but that's only at an incident where either we are arriving on scene or we're already operating. Should we encounter an autonomous vehicle not behaving exactly how we would expect a human, we would just navigate our apparatus around and proceed to our destination where we're

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: If you can.

[Deputy Chief Patrick Rabbit (SFFD Operations)]: Yes, if we can. The second the third one was a medical call that was outside of the Avoid the Area, and it was code two, which means a non emergent response. However, it was very close to the Avoid the Area, and we had to find that because that was one of our partners in San Francisco, a private medical provider on the ambulance. But we found that through the CAD detail searching for AVs and Waymo's. But I think what I mentioned before to Supervisor Mahmood related to our computer aided dispatch system notifying the AVs in real time because we could send an ATA, but we need to have some confirmation that it is received. But if we could integrate our dispatch, our computer aided dispatch system with the ATAs and the technology of the AVs, think that could be something we could work moving towards between our agencies here in San Francisco and the AV companies. As well as when we get on scene. We do have times where humans, we may have a language barrier, they may be panicked on scene because there's a lot of red lights. And that is nerve racking to a driver. So perhaps when we do try to notify the attendant or the company that we have a problem with their vehicle, if we can get a human response within a short set of time so we could actively assist them to get that vehicle out of the scene for us would be great.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Sure. Thank you. Thank you. One

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: last question, just wrapping up. So it seems like the things that you both have expressed needing are that, one, making sure our first responders are not in the business of roadside assistance. Second, thinking about other scenarios that this might happen again and having an emergency response from AV companies like Waymo. And third, maybe having a direct integration of your notification systems between Fire to the AV system as well. One thing I didn't hear was that, I mean, in the beginning, you were talking about the long delay time of even receiving a response and necessitating our mayor to directly call Waymo. Do you have any thoughts on how to reduce that feedback loop? Is it based on your experience thus far with the Super Bowl? Or, like, what other things can we do to tighten that feedback loop, in your opinion?

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: So since December, we have had multiple meetings with Waymo. And I would say that they've been very collaborative and cooperative. The next, you know, we obviously brought everyone together. I believe it was that evening because we didn't want to experience that again. And we were given a human being to call, all of that. You know, disasters are chaotic. We may not know when they happen. We may not know the nature of them. And when you do have a catastrophic disaster, all resources are going to go toward immediately saving life and property. It's just critical that we learn from these things, that we advocate for regulations that are on the side of public safety. And to do that with new technology, we have to work together. We have to talk. We have to understand. They need to understand. And we have talked to them and feel like they're hearing us. Like, this is our situation. This is how we look at this. This is our mandate. This is how we have to govern. This is how we have to respond to our constituents and anyone that's in the city. And so it's difficult. These are difficult conversations. But I think we need to be committed to working together because they're here. Just as we know with other utilities that we can have difficult and frustrating experiences with, we can't go into our separate corners. We have to continue to keep that dialogue and work together for solutions.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you, Doctor. Chyanne. Sounds like having a human in the loop is important. Thank you. Thank you both for your answers. And thank you again for all your service on that weekend. Next up, I'd like to call on the transportation side Julia Friedlander, AV Manager at SFMTA, and Tilly Chang, Director of the SFCTA.

[Julia Friedlander (Autonomous Vehicle Program, SFMTA)]: Good afternoon, members. I was told that you would not need me, but I'm here and I'm happy to answer any questions that you are interested in asking.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: No, appreciate it, Julia. I think we have a couple of questions. I mean, we heard how the first section was about how did the autonomous vehicle response affect emergency operations. What we saw in videos as well was that it was also affecting Muni. On that day, I was actually taking the seven with my wife to go on a date. And it was stalled for a little bit because of the AVs that were blocking some of the traffic. And so I wanted to hear better from your perspective, what was the impact from your perspective of Waymo and Thomas Vehicles stalling issues on the muni network that weekend and start there.

[Julia Friedlander (Autonomous Vehicle Program, SFMTA)]: So first, I think the important thing to say is, as with FHIR and DEM, what we have to report and what actually happened are two very, very different things. We have always known that we have, you know, a very small subsection of the events that actually happen on the street. There are many reasons for that. One is just that some of the incidents may actually be relatively short and make clear without, you know, very significant disruptions. Another is just that our our public workers are doing their jobs and their job number one for transit operators for example and for our transit transportation management center is to do everything we possibly can to maintain the continuity of service to serve the public. So there are a number of city workers who have positions where, you know, they don't have the opportunity to just sit down and, like, write a note of a license plate or where exactly a vehicle was or how many AVs were stopped at a particular place because they are either driving or they are actively trying to direct traffic, for example, in the street. We know that SFPD has had a lot of difficulty with failure to respond to human traffic control. And nobody who is doing human traffic control is able to sit down in the middle of their shift and write out a report. So, I think that, from my perspective, it's always been very important for us to consider all information sources. And so, the public information sources, the calls to 09:11, to 03:11, the calls from 09:11, from our 09:11 dispatchers to companies, and then most importantly, the companies themselves. We appreciate that the DMV and the Public Utilities Commission have required certain reporting. We welcome believe that a lot of that information can and should be made available to the public to facilitate and support, for example, DEM's efforts at planning and resilience. So there's no we don't have an omniscient narrator in this film. We don't have one player who can tell us everything that happened.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: So you may not have can you speak to anecdotally what was the effect on the network in that sense?

[Julia Friedlander (Autonomous Vehicle Program, SFMTA)]: So we also, because of issues about our surveillance technology policy, we don't keep track. We don't monitor and maintain video of everything that happens on our streets. And that's because of San Francisco's policy commitments to privacy and autonomy. And so we I can't tell you the actual impacts on the overall network of the street. That is something that one would have to piece together all these information sources, and it's not a perfect picture. I think the key thing from our comments that we filed collaboratively with police and fire and DEM is that really our focus has to be on preventing this in the future, and that this was a kind of a lucky honestly on some level I know it was not it was had all kinds of problems to San Franciscans and I don't want to trivialize the impacts of the outage, but it was lucky that we had this opportunity to make sure that we start investing in the resiliency going forward and making sure that there are for example emergency operations plans for AV companies that are consistent with the size of their fleet and therefore the potential impacts that they've been reviewed by local governments, that they've been approved through a public process so that we can feel confident that five years from now if we have five times or 10 times as many vehicles on our street, we're prepared to handle the consequences in the event of an emergency like this.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Okay. Sounds like we don't any other questions from my colleagues?

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Yeah, just another question that I was wondering about. So a few of the vehicles, like 'sixty eight, I think, were manually retrieved. How long did it take to retrieve the other ones? And was the MTA actually keeping track of when they were being cleared?

[Julia Friedlander (Autonomous Vehicle Program, SFMTA)]: So we get information from DEM and from fire. And we have we we are keeping track in the same way that you and I know that we're talking to each other right now but we don't necessarily remember that tomorrow exactly what happened. So we are keeping track for the purposes of trying to get our streets operational, our emergency responders to the places they need to go to be effective in protecting the public, to get our transit network so that it is serving our riders. And that the data gathering that comes along with that is really designed to facilitate our effective service delivery and not to kind of draw a comprehensive picture of all the impacts.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: All right. Well, that's interesting. So if I could just restate that, like in real time, it a mess that day when there were stoppages that impeded the path of like a bus or something. You the central MTA command center, the two one two. Like, keeping track, right? Because your operators would call and say, this is what's happening. And so you followed that until resolution. But for the streets where it was just the neighbors or whatever, that's not necessarily what would happen. You didn't follow that up until somebody complained somewhere. So you didn't have a comprehensive picture. It was just like

[Julia Friedlander (Autonomous Vehicle Program, SFMTA)]: a crisis after It's really very what we know of and what we don't know of. And our transit operators, their focus really is on service delivery. So they will see if they can make their way around a vehicle that is stalled in the way. That's obviously, you know, something they need to be very careful about in protecting their passengers and also their desire to meet their schedule. So that's really their focus. The information that we get from that is just not at all comprehensive.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Julia Friedlander (Autonomous Vehicle Program, SFMTA)]: Thank you.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: I'll just close off by saying, if I'm hearing you right, it is concerning to me that we don't have data on what happened on that day from MTA. I just want to that's what I'm hearing, right?

[Julia Friedlander (Autonomous Vehicle Program, SFMTA)]: We do have we have a few reports, and we know they're underreported, just as the fire department reported. And so we have reports that came in from our transit operators, but we know that there were other incidents and that's just the kind of the nature of the operation. We do appreciate that DMV, in particular particularly CPUC, have required operators to submit a very significant amount of data to them. At this time, most of that data is not available to the city because the permittees have claimed that they have have made claims of confidential treatment to that. We appreciate that way mo has provided a few very, you know, very isolated data points. They do help us understand the scope of the impact around the city, that 1,500 plus stoppage events. But we'd like the ability to really examine that and look at patterns in ways that would help us with our disaster and resilience planning.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Okay. We'll move on. Thank you. Tilly, director of CTA. Forward looking in this context of transportation, I was hoping for a little more context on the problem today, but I'm not sure we're going get it. What is your perspective on a timeline for PUC integration based on city comments to future regulation in this context, in the context of emergency and preparedness response?

[Tilly Chang (Executive Director, SF County Transportation Authority)]: Thank you so much, Supervisor. The question being the timeline for CPUC, I would probably best refer that question to them. But we're hopeful that it will be a timely part of their rulemaking. They just the CPUC has been taking input on the scoping of the next generation of autonomous vehicle regulations. So this certainly came up in Judge Mason's hearing that was conducted a couple of months ago at the CPUC. We appreciated that line of questioning. And so we'll continue to file together with SFMTA to press for a timely addressing of these needs.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Based on everything you heard today from different departments, what would be your recommendation in terms of future regulation to affect emergency response as we saw it in the context of this weekend.

[Tilly Chang (Executive Director, SF County Transportation Authority)]: Yes, thank you so much. This really does build on already a lot of work that has been undertaken on just emergency scene coordination from a solo location standpoint. Now we have a fleet wide. And really, the order of magnitude, of course, is exponential. So, it is imperative, we think, to follow-up on some of those initial good efforts that followed, particularly, Assembly Member Phil Ting's bill, AB seventeen seventy seven, from 2024, which was passed. There still needs to be some codification and some formalization of those types of solutions, and now even expansion of those solutions to multi site operational failures rather than just single site emergency scenes. And if I might, for that reason, we had already been pleased to partner with our sister agency in Contra Costa to apply for a federal grant, which they did receive from the Federal Highway Administration to try and demonstrate and develop collaboratively with industry protocols for just single site emergency scene coordination, which we would like to propose to expand to multi site or resilience type, fleet wide type coordination and protocol solutions.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Have you already engaged with Waymo on that program?

[Tilly Chang (Executive Director, SF County Transportation Authority)]: Not yet, no. We were just in the hallway talking about it. There was some coordination on the city side. But we would love to invite them and all AV providers who are interested to participate in that process.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: And what would be the result of that type of grant work process? What would be the net result if that process goes ahead?

[Tilly Chang (Executive Director, SF County Transportation Authority)]: Yes, great. So again, CCTA was awarded this $3,300,000 federal grant for planning and demonstration activities as part of the Safe Streets for All program to demonstrate new technology solutions, as well as process protocol type solutions model communication and coordination protocols for large scale resilience events, such as what we saw here or even larger events perhaps of the future would be one potential output, as well as resilience action plans, the types of model plans that regulators could require of AV companies as part of their permitting system, which would need to be, of course, as DEM and SFMTA also refer to, developed in close coordination with local agencies in each of these jurisdictions. Technology demonstrations would also be a possibility to demonstrate the solution to help maintain those communication protocols that the fire department mentioned, as well as the chair you were asking about, to try and find a better way to collectively have better real time coordination and information exchange, as well as in the aftermath to be able to analyze the situation better. So those are some examples of what we would hope could result from this project.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you, Tilley. Any other questions from my colleagues to CTA?

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you, Director Chang, for being here. So the TA's role in our structure in the city is to plan for transportation infrastructure for our city. And so now that AVs are part of our system, Your staff did some pretty groundbreaking work last year to put forward best practices and things that other municipalities should be thinking about. Are you thinking of perhaps updating some of that, given what we've learned to incorporate emergency management and or response to natural disasters, and any technological additions that we could make to that framework?

[Tilly Chang (Executive Director, SF County Transportation Authority)]: Thank you so much for the question. And thank you to the Transportation Authority Board for adopting that study, which was the autonomous vehicle safety focused conceptual permitting framework, in which we advocated to particularly regulators, but to industry and all stakeholders an incremental performance based approach to permitting. Certainly, things like crashes and individual vehicle stalls and conflicts was part of that framework. Now, I would absolutely agree that we should be considering adding these types of resilience events to that framework as part of this ability for regulators and the public to have confidence that these advanced planning considerations are fully taken into account and transparently and inclusively consulted with local government developed so that we can have more confidence, again, that as not just Waymo, but other autonomous vehicle companies continue to come to San Francisco, we can all have better assurance that they are ready. And together, we are ready as a city for the scale of perhaps multiple companies operating in our city. So that's really important. I appreciate the question. And we would be glad to work on that as the congestion management agency also charged with monitoring and analyzing performance of our streets. Thank you.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you, Director.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you, Director. I appreciate coming forward and sharing your perspectives as well. Next up, I would like to bring any other questions for my colleagues? No. I'd like to bring up Waymo. Appreciate you being here. I believe you have a presentation to start, and then we will go from questions from there.

[Michael McGee (Public Policy, Waymo)]: Appreciate it. Good afternoon, Supervisor Mahmood, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the committee today. My name is Michael McGee. I lead Waymo's public policy engagement in California. We appreciate the board convening this hearing to address the PG and E power outage that occurred on December 20. We understand that as a new technology, the performance of our fleet during extraordinary events like a widespread and persistent power failure is a matter of public concern and we hope our participation today is productive and informative. I also want to take a moment to thank the agencies that are participating today, DEM, FHIR, MTA, CTA and for their continued partnership and collaboration on this issue. I

[David Cruz (Spanish Interpreter, Intergraphics)]: want to

[Michael McGee (Public Policy, Waymo)]: begin by reiterating Waymo's mission is to be the world's most trusted driver and achieving that mission starts with safety. As of today, we've driven nearly 200,000,000 fully autonomous miles on public roads and we've served over 20,000,000 trips to riders across the country in cities where we operate. In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, we've driven over 40,000,000 autonomous miles and have served millions of trips without a driver behind the wheel. Last year, we served on the order of 6,000,000 trips in the San Francisco Bay Area. As you're all aware, there's a seemingly relentless and all too tragic human toll from traffic accidents on our roadways. Today, many millions of miles into the deployment of Waymo's technology, the data show that our automated driving system, the Waymo Driver, is making roads safer where we operate. Data from our first 127,000,000 fully autonomous miles has indicated that our driver is involved in ninety percent fewer serious injury or worse causing crashes compared to human drivers where we operate and ninety two percent fewer injury causing crashes involving a pedestrian. In San Francisco specifically, the data show that an 88% reduction in serious injury or worse crashes compared to human drivers. We're heartened by these safety statistics and know that improved operations during emergency events, the critical topic that we're here today to discuss, will help us advance our safety mission. With me today are my colleagues, Chinmay Jane and Sam Cooper, two of our technical experts who are here to help answer specific questions around our response to the power outage on December 20 and the subsequent improvements that we've made in our emergency response. I want to note that over the last two months, our team has worked diligently to determine the root causes, effects and any learnings from this outage. Additionally, we've been working closely with state and local stakeholders, including many of the colleagues from San Francisco here today, to provide detailed briefings on the outage. We've not only briefed, San Francisco stakeholders, but I want to note that we've also provided briefings and information on this issue, to the Governor's office, to CALSTA, the DMV and CHP, as well as the CPUC in an effort to be responsive to the questions raised around this event to communicate the steps we've taken since then. I'll turn it over now to mister Jane to provide details on the day of incident, and then to mister Cooper to discuss our learnings and next steps we've taken to improve our operations. Thank you.

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Thank you, Michael. Hello, supervisors. My name is Chyanne Chen. I'm a director of product management at Waymo, and I want to provide an overview of what happened during the outage from Waymo's perspective. As you know, on December 20, a fire at the PG And E station caused a widespread outage affecting approximately one third of San Francisco. PG and E's power failure caused traffic lights to stop functioning leading to a gridlock in locations across the city. Residents were advised by the Department of Emergency Management to stay home during the outage, which underscores the extraordinary nature of the weekend's disruption. Waymo first became aware of the outage in San Francisco at approximately 02:15PM through an alert to our security team. Waymo took several steps over the course of the afternoon on December 20 in response to the outage. These steps initially included initiating defleeting efforts, which means removing some vehicles from service and sending them back to depots, and this started approximately at 3PM. During this initial period of outage, our driving operations were not significantly impacted. This ability for the fleet to continue operating wasn't unexpected. Wemo's automated driving system is designed to handle issues caused by power failures, including by treating disabled traffic signals as four way stops. And so Waymo vehicles were able to navigate intersections with non functioning traffic signals during the early period of the outage without much disruption. However, as the power outage persisted into the evening, the scale of the blackout conditions experienced on the twentieth coupled with our system's cautious approach to intersections with fully dark traffic signals presented a unique challenge. The Waymo Driver is designed with safety as its foundation. In these blackout conditions, our vehicles acted cautiously as designed, and in some occasions, they requested a confirmation check from our remote assistant agents before proceeding through the intersection with darkened traffic lights. The approach prioritizes a high degree of certainty before entering an intersection with fully dark traffic signals. In a more routine scenario, when the Waymo AV encounters this situation, the confirmation check is answered quickly and the Waymo AV proceeds safely on its way. But on December 20, the widespread and persistent outage resulted in an accumulation of these requests to remote assistance, especially between 5PM and 6PM. This resulted in longer than typical response times, which caused some of our vehicles to remain stationary at intersections contributing to city's congestion. As PG and E's estimate for restoring part continued to slip and we heard directly from Mayor Lurie's office, we took additional steps, including temporarily pausing the service in the area. Additionally, we directed our fleet to pull over and park so we could return vehicles to our depots when congestion had eased. We made this decision in order to avoid further adding to congestion or inadvertently interfering with utility and city personnel during the peak of power restoration effort. We resumed the service the next day when the power was restored to most of the city. Now let me introduce my colleague Sam Cooper who will talk about our learnings and next steps.

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Thank you, Chyanne Chen. Good afternoon. My name is Sam Cooper, and I am the program manager of incident response at Waymo. I want to be very clear that Waymo takes full responsibility for the communication gaps that occurred that evening. Specifically, we acknowledge the difficulty the Department of Emergency Management and other agencies experienced in reaching us. We have heard the city's frustrations clearly in our recent debriefs, particularly regarding the need for a direct, reliable line of communication during a crisis. Our protocol is to ensure riders reach their destinations safely, which is why we did not immediately cancel trips that were in progress and pause service. However, we recognize that our delay in establishing clear, proactive communications with the city was unacceptable. We are committed to ensuring that this does not happen again. Following the outage, Waymo took immediate steps to improve our performance during an event like this. While our driver already handles dark traffic signals as four way stops, we have rolled out additional fleet wide updates that give our vehicles even more context about regional outages, allowing them to understand when something like a blackout is occurring. This is so they can navigate these intersections much more decisively. We've also revised our internal escalation pathways for power outage events and improved our automated alerting systems to notify operations teams immediately when AVs detect an unexpected spike in traffic light related or unanswered requests. We have also expanded our first responder engagement too. To date, we've trained more than thirty thousand first responders globally on how to interact with Waymo, including almost a thousand San Francisco fire and police personnel. As we discover learnings from this and other widespread events, we'll continue updating our first responder training accordingly. We have also updated our emergency preparedness and response processes as well. We continue to improve, incorporating lessons learned from this event, and we'll continue to coordinate with Mayor Lurie's office, first responders in the fire and police departments, the Department of Emergency Management, as well as SFMTA and CTA, to identify areas of greater collaboration in our existing emergency preparedness plans. Thank you, and we are available to answer any questions that

[Mark Bruberg (Taxi Workers Alliance board member)]: you have.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you. Let's dive in first into my questions will be technical and then operations. The technical side, it seems that, again, you said you were notified at 02:15, and then 03:00 started to remove vehicles. But then when there was a surge in the evening, my understanding in the reports is there was some surge to your system that caused these vehicles to stall. Is that a technical limitation of your product? And if so, what was that technical limitation, and how did you resolve it?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Thank you for your question, supervisor. So just to directly answer the question first, this is not a technical limitation of the system. What happened was, as I was explaining earlier, when Waymo encounters a traffic light which is not working and is dark, and in these cases, it is able to take those decisions on its own, but in minority of cases, a request is sent to a remote assistance, and that request is to confirm the state of the traffic light. In this case, again, in general, this works really well, but in this case, because this was a fleet wide outage and a lot of these requests were being sent to remote assistance, what happened was that there was a backlog of requests created to remote assistance and so there was delay in their response to the cars at the intersection. And that is what caused this case of what we see in these videos of AV stopped at intersection because they were waiting for input from remote assistance.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: So how do you resolve I mean, in the context of APIs, I know you set rate limits and you increase that. When you encounter backlogs going for have you at a universal threshold, increase your API rate limit, or are you kind of doing a different process?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I would say I think we are doing at least three things here. One is as soon as we get the information about anything around this, let's say any kind of remote assistance requests spiking and going up, those alerts would now directly go to the operations team who can then take reasonable steps like, let's say, increasing supply of remote assistance. The second thing is, as Sam was mentioning earlier, if there is a region wise outage, we want to we can now communicate to the fleet that there is an outage. And so in cases where they encounter these dark traffic lights, they don't even need to reach out to remote assistance, and this is the part of decreasing the, you know, demand for remote assistance, and so they can make more decisive take more decisive actions without needing remote assistance. And lastly, to your point, as you were alluding to, which is, we have also given power to our on call teams to be able to differentiate between the high priority and low priority request and cut down on low priority requests to remote assistance in such times. For instance, a low priority request would be, is this car dirty or, how many passengers are in the car? And that helps us prioritize better the responses that are more important, such as the response to a traffic light query.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: So it's helpful to know that you changed some emergency protocol procedures in terms of the technical limitations. But what we did also hear is that you have remote operators on the other side of the call that have to respond, to assess some of the issues as they happen. And I think one of the things that's, I think, salient in the context here is that there's been articles in the Telegraph, that talked about your expansion of some of these operators in The U. And then Waymo representatives mentioned also that there were operators based in The Philippines. So if we're reliant in an emergency situation on operators in The Philippines to have to assess a condition here, how can you explain or justify that?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Yeah. Thank you for the question, supervisor. I mean, at a high level, I would say the location of the remote assistance has no implications, especially talking about this case of SF outage. There was no relation of location of the remote assistance with that. Having said that, I'll mention

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: How many operators do you have in each of these locations, specifically in The Philippines as well?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: So what I can tell you is that we have overall 70 operators working at any point in time to respond to these remote assistance queries. And it's just, again, just for context, these are remote assistants. These are not

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: For San Francisco or the whole country?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Whole fleet. Everything that we drive.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Everywhere. Okay.

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Yes. Great. And I just like to highlight that, again, these are remote assistance. When these are not driving the cars, they are just providing guidance to the car when the AV asks for a question, and then the final decision of whether to accept or reject that guidance remains with the AV.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: You don't see a problem with having 70 globally to respond to an emergency situation in this context?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: I think so again, as you think about this, as I said, they are not monitoring the cars all the time. They are only responding to a question from the car. We do a very detailed analysis on what's the demand for such requests like and hence have these dynamic systems where we can increase the supply of remote assistance accordingly.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Let's get into the emergency response during the day. You said you decided to pull vehicles about 05:55 p. M. As we've heard a couple of times, it took fifty five minutes for one of the dispatchers to actually hear a response. It took our mayor calling the CEO, Waymo, directly to get the fleets off the street. I know you starting to you said you were starting to pull some vehicles off at three, but the full response to pull them wasn't until after the mayor called. How are you adjusting your protocols going forward so that we don't have to rely on the mayor of our city to call you to actually get a response in terms of this response?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yes. Thank you for your question, supervisor. So, Waymo conducted a very thorough after action review in the wake of the PG and E outage to adequately understand the situation and the causal factors, and as well as identify any rapid improvements that we need to make. The first thing we did is we expanded our playbooks and revised our playbooks to rely less on PG and E outage resumption figures that we were stated. Frankly, we were over reliant on the resumption numbers that we were presented by PG and E. So we immediately made that change in our tactical guidance and our escalation protocols to make sure the right people are aware that this problem is occurring.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: You're speaking to that PG and E's notifications themselves were incorrect, right?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Correct. Specifically on the resumption times, we were being overly reliant on those resumption times, and that was informing our response decisions probably to a too high of a degree.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Understood. I mean, I still want to know more specifically, how are your humans in the loop in this process? Because we can't it's unacceptable to have nine eleven dispatchers waiting nearly an hour for a response. What are you doing to solve that specific problem?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yes, thank you for the question. And we absolutely understand the concern. And just to reiterate, that hold time that we had for our public safety officials was entirely unacceptable. And we completely acknowledge that. As I think you've heard from Executive Director Carroll, you know, have been working tirelessly to absolutely improve and rebuild some of that trust with the city so that when you need us, we are there. That wait time was unacceptable. We are not proud of that response on the day.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: But what are you doing to fix it?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yeah. To address that head on, simply put, we've also made the improvements to our surge staffing capabilities so that we've trained more folks to answer phones when we have a significant incident going on. We've also

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: So you're saying that the issue was staffing availability in terms of response time?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: As we've heard from other officials here today, we have experienced the same surge in calls around that sort of between five to 6PM period that did push our current capacity over the limit to what was acceptable for us.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Have you already hired additional staff to operate to be ready for such a surge going forward?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: I do not have the numbers on specifics of the hiring of the remote assistance staff, but we'd be willing to absolutely work with your office to get you those numbers.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Understood. Getting into the number of retrievals, it was noted by emergency management and fire that there were 64 incidents that required manual retrieval on that day. And we heard how one of the main requests coming from the city is that we don't want our police officers to be in the business of roadside assistance. What are you doing to make sure that there's more available resources on your end to assist on that capacity so our first responders can be helping people in the note of a crisis?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yes, thank you for the question, and it is a completely valid concern. I also just want to acknowledge that blocking any first responder's path is entirely unacceptable. And as a first responder myself previously, I totally understand the importance of reaching whatever scene you're moving to rapidly. I also want to confirm that we also heard reports of this which prompted our incident response team actions to pull our vehicles over, as well as defleet and pause our service. We were also aware of two instances where first responders moved our ADVs, and certainly not here to dispute any of the figures that the officials mentioned earlier. I think we have a shared mission in safety on the roads and in our communities, and we absolutely want to work very closely with them to make sure that our response or our issues with blocking first responders does not happen again.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: I appreciate the commitment to do so. What are the actions you are taking to assure us that we will not be reliant on our first responders to do roadside assistance?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yeah. I think to adequately answer your question, I think just moving back to our training that we have with first responders, we have trained almost one thousand first responders here in San Francisco and over 30,000 globally. We also have worked with local first responders on the design and mechanism we have for them to, in extremely emergent situations, to move our vehicles, acknowledging that that is an unacceptable reliance that we do not factor into any operations. We simply want to give them the capability in that event to adequately move that vehicle from the scene and make that scene safe so that they're able to do their jobs.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: I mean, there is reports CNBC reported last month that you've partnered with DoorDash to close vehicle doors when they're left ajar. And then you also partnered with a company called Honk, a roadside assistance company, for vehicle maintenance. Is there opportunities to leverage those types of partnerships so that we don't have to be doing that work in that context, in the context of emergency response?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: I think that's an excellent question, something we'd certainly be willing to explore with the city officials. I also want to state that that is not my area of expertise. And I would defer to my other colleagues who have much more expertise in that.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Going further into the interactions with emergency services, there was context from what we heard from the fire department that NDEM, that they have a request for better interlinking or integration of their software system from their end for notifications with your system? Is that a commitment you can make to the fire department today?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yeah, I think and first off, as the officials have rightly mentioned earlier, we have had extensive conversations with them on how to best improve that service. And we are certainly open to ensuring that our relationships are able to take that next step towards increased collaboration and, again, towards that shared mission of public safety in our communities and on the roads.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: So will you interlink your systems?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: It's obviously extremely challenging for me to give that commitment to you today as an incident response manager. Again, that is outside my direct scope as it relates to technology integrations, but absolutely willing to have the conversations, the conclusion of this hearing, to make sure that we're hearing everyone on the table.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Okay. As you heard from the fire department, it's one of the major things that will help them to have better closed loop communication. The CTA brought up, Assembly Bill seventeen seventy seven, which is a law sponsored by Assembly Member, Ting, former Assembly Member, and signed into the governor that will take in effect, four months from now. The legislation includes a requirement that Waymo avoid a particular area within two minutes of getting a warning from dispatchers of events like structural fires. It doesn't seem like from December's incident that you are ready to be in compliance with that law. What are you doing to be in compliance in four months from now?

[Michael McGee (Public Policy, Waymo)]: Yeah. Happy to speak to that. AB seventeen seventy seven, so we worked very closely with the assembly member's office on the entirety of that bill. As far as your question on what we're doing, it's our current practice to be in compliance with those geofencing regulations. And so I think as Sam mentioned, in the instance during the power outage, there's a number of staffing concerns around this. But our systems are currently set up to be able to comply with those geofencing messages. I think that's more of an operational concern than a technical limitation.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Understood. There's also a requirement in that bill that calls from dispatchers have to be picked up within thirty seconds. We just heard that it took fifty minutes. How are you going to be ready by July 1 to answer calls within thirty seconds?

[Michael McGee (Public Policy, Waymo)]: Yeah. I think, again, similar solution here is that's an operational concern, not a technical limitation. And so there's a staffing issue. It does take people. There's also the other procedures that Chinmay and Sam mentioned around shedding the lower priority requests, making sure that folks are, during an emergency response, focused on the very specific and high priority issues.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: It would be do you have a sense of how much staffing you need to increase by? Because that's what I'm hearing right now is that you don't have adequate staff to respond in time during an emergency. On the operator line, what is the level you need to get to from the 70 you have today to comply and be able to handle this type of surge going forward?

[Michael McGee (Public Policy, Waymo)]: Yeah, I don't have a specific percentage. I don't know if my colleagues have more to add on that. But I think there's, like I said, an element of making sure that the folks are focused on what they need to be focused on and not assessing something like a dirty car, or a rider support issue, being able to respond to the top priority during an emergency. But I don't know if there's any other context to add here.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Before handing off my colleagues, I mean, forward, during the days leading up to the Super Bowl, it was my understanding that Weyma was president of the Emergency Operations Center. What did you learn from that experience to be partnering with the city on an event by event basis? And what commitments can you make today to the city on making it easier for our first responders to access vehicles? Because frankly, what I'm hearing mostly is that you kind of still expect our first responders to do roadside assistance, and you are just going to help us train them better to do that. I'm not really hearing a response about how you can take on some of that responsibility as well.

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yes. Thank you for the question. I think just to address the first component of your question, we have heard loud and clear that we were not proactive enough in establishing communications with the cities, in particular the Department of Emergency Management. And as we know, we need communication first in order to be able to coordinate these large scale events appropriately. So absolutely, we're here to say that we did not perform well in that regards on the December 20 PG and E outage. The steps we've taken since then is we've ensured that we have a line of communication always open to the Department of Emergency Management for large scale events moving forward, such as the Super Bowl.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Can you describe more what that line of communication mean? What does that mean in terms of staffing? What does it mean in terms of procedures?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Absolutely. So in the instance of the Super Bowl, as we know, is a very successful event for the city. We actually positioned an emergency management expert with over twenty five years of experience in the EOC for an in person presence. And that individual was then able to effectively coordinate a lot of the requests that we were getting from the city to avoid any incidents. We're very proud to be able to do that, and we look to continue to roll that out more formally through

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Would you consider having that person be available every day, not just in the context of events?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: The model we are committed to investing is on within an hour, we will be able to have either an in person presence, and obviously much quicker from a virtual perspective, to ensure that we're able adequately coordinate and communicate any issues that may arise with the city.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: So, with an hour of an incident going forward, you will always dedicate one resource to be within emergency management to be available as a direct liaison?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: This is the plan that we're looking to anchor on to ensure that we're able to do that coordination effectively. Firstly, that relies on that line of communication into the city, acknowledging that our is a target. Obviously, EOC activations may take some time to get the adequate resourcing in there. But we want to commit to be able to have that individual there in person or at least virtually.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you. I'm going ask some more questions later, but I'll hand it over to Supervisor Wong. Thank you.

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: Going back to my previous question, what protocols are triggered by Waymo during a citywide power

[David Canham (SEIU 1021)]: outage? Yes.

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: So, maybe it be helpful if I walk through the broader sort of incident management approach that we have. So, from an incident management perspective, we have a team of experts of former public safety officials, emergency managers, who are able to respond twenty four seven to Waymo's most critical events. They are also supported by over a 120 subject matter experts from across the company who are available from a twenty four seven capacity. So bringing this back to the PG and E outage, we convened that team around about three p. M. That day and started initiating what Chyanne referred to as that defleet process, which was removing vehicles off the road, as initially we just saw impacts to three of our facilities. When we saw that surge in requests around about sort of five p. M. Coinciding with the dark hours, We then also initiated between five and 6PM a further engagement of that incident response team to begin taking those response actions in relation to the power outage.

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: Going forward, how quickly can immobilized vehicles be cleared from critical corridors if there's such an incident?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: That's a difficult question for me to answer in my current role. I would suggest what we could do in this instance is follow-up with your office to make sure that we're able to provide you with that accurate information.

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: So this time, there's no clear if something like that triggered again, there's no clear timeline or ability to ensure that the vehicles can be taken off our roads?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: I don't have those timelines that I'm able to share with you today. What I will say at a very high level is trying to distill this technical process a little bit. We have three core levers that we can pull in these different incidents. The first is we're able to defleet those vehicles, so remove the vehicles from the situation. We also can place a void the area notices down to our vehicles. And then we also can initiate a service pause.

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: Okay. Do you have a count of how many vehicles were stalled that night?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Thank you for your question. Supervisor, just give

[David Canham (SEIU 1021)]: me a moment.

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Yeah. With respect to how many vehicles, I think what we can say is just some more context before I answer this that on December 20, we completed around 15,000 trips in the San Francisco Bay area. And as we were reducing the number of trips later in the day, I think we had around 3,000 trips that occurred during the outage period. With respect to out of these thousands of trips, we have identified less than 70 cases in which our riders face significant delays during their trip and cancellation in some cases. Does that answer your question?

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Yes. It was 1,500.

[Michael McGee (Public Policy, Waymo)]: That's 1,500 is correct.

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: So I think Yeah. I I want to be clear. I think that's why there are various ways to look at the same data. What I just mentioned was how many riders were impacted. And so the 1,500 stoppage number, I want to be clear that that's a new data point that was created by a California state regulator. I want to be clear about two points there. One is it's a very difficult metric to measure because it can include cases which are very justified cases of stop, especially in urban driving, like let's say stop for a very long stack of traffic and so it's not a perfect metric and then secondly, especially for this 1,500 number on the day of outage, it gives you a sense that this was a higher number than normal, it, you know, gels well with the anecdotal evidence, but it is not necessary that all these stops were due to the power outage or due to all these stops were at the intersection. I just want to make sure we understand that distinction. But as you said, this 1,500

[David Canham (SEIU 1021)]: You

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: could do a counterfactual how many stoppages happened during a regular hour to know what the differential would be. So do you have a sense of that?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Sure. I don't have that number. But yeah, that would be a way to get a better perspective on the Thank

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: you for sharing the information. The theme here is, as Supervisor Mahmood has mentioned, our first responders should not be AAA roadside assistance. I recently heard about an incident in Austin where a Waymo vehicle blocked traffic as first responders were going to an Austin bar mass shooting where there are three killed and 13 That

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: was a long I would indicate again that we have to focus on the blackout. So direct your questions to cut off the blackout today.

[Supervisor (District 4) — referred to as 'Supervisor Wong' (name unclear)]: Roger that. There was an incident. And so with the 70 operators that we discussed earlier that are 8,000 miles away, how familiar are they with United States, or in this case, California vehicle codes or other more localized policies that we have that pertain to emergencies? And how distant they are, how can they be responsive for such an incident? How can they be more responsive in the future?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Absolutely. That's a very fair question, something that we deeply care about. And so with respect to the location of the remote assistance, as I said earlier, that has no bearing on the incidence of the PG and E outage. In general, all our remote assistants, doesn't matter where they are, they are trained really, really well to be able to then respond to the queries that they are getting from the Waymo driver. And then again, just to remind again, they are not driving. They're just giving a guidance answering a question to the Waymo, and that's really what they are trained on.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you. Supervisor Chen?

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Thank you, Supervisor Bilal. I just have a follow-up question on the 1,500 stoppage. So you mentioned that it's not a perfect metric that you are currently measuring for data. So have you have brain more internally discussed how to do better metric then we can come up with better data? This outage is not a single case. We will have, unfortunately, God forbid, other emergencies, like fire, earthquake. So have you guys discussed any other ways how to have better metrics and how to better support the system?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Just so that I'm clear about your question, are saying, given the stoppage, as I mentioned, some gaps in the stoppage metric, you're saying, could there be a better metric that Waymo is thinking about? Yeah, so I mean, of course, internally we're discussing many metrics, hundreds of metrics to be able to understand a situation. A, the real world is very chaotic. It's very difficult to come up with a single metric that you can in an automatic manner calculate and describe the incident. So within Waymo, of course, we look at a lot more data. I think this particular stoppage data, as I said earlier, was created based on inputs from the state regulator. And there were, of course, a lot of discussions on that, too. But very precisely, yes, we look into a lot more data and try to be more precise internally.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: So then with that, I want to know what is the contingency plan currently for addressing the needs for rider who are strength, especially vulnerable communities such as senior or people with disabilities?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Great. Just Yes,

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: thank you for your question, supervisor. I think, you know, first off, maybe addressing, you know, the hazards that we face in the community. So we maintain plans based on the hazards that we're likely to encounter in the community. And I just want to also reaffirm the commitment to working with the city to jointly exercise this and collaborate moving forward. I think it's really important that we don't just speak about these things, we actually have to do this. This is definitely a public commitment to work closer with the city. We have met with all of the public safety officials that have spoken today, and we absolutely want to renew that commitment to doing that moving forward. As it relates to the individuals with access and functional needs requirements, take that into consideration with our operations plans. We also train rider support folks on that to ensure that we're able to adequately support those members of the community.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: So am I clear that you currently don't have a plan? I know we're working together, but like is there if anything, know, a disabled senior is in the car that need assistance, what is the current contingency plan to support the riders?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: We have operational plans that we'd be 100% willing to follow-up with your office

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: on that. You. Then my next question, we mentioned about 70 global operators. How many vehicles currently the 70 global operators are supporting?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Thank you for your question. I don't remember the number of vehicles, but I said those 70 operators are supporting our whole fleet across. And

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: you don't have a number of how many vehicles?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Total number? Not at the top of my mind, but it's an easy number to come back to you with.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Then my follow-up question is, how and what do you train your remote personnel to manage a large scale multi agent failure, rather than an isolated one vehicle incidence? What are the training? And how are you training your personnel?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: So that I'm clear, you're saying how could remote assistance work on

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, what kind of training? And how are you training them? Like people in Philippine and helping us in San Francisco.

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Right. For the remote assistance, Yeah.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: With the I mean, whatever assistant that is Waymo is supporting our unit to make sure that our street is safe, our passengers are safe.

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Right. I'm sorry. I'm still not 100% clear about the question. In terms of training for remote assistance, I can give you context, which is, again, remote assistance are trained specifically for the questions or requests they could get from the Waymo vehicle. And that's, of course, a very detailed training that happens for every remote assistance person that becomes the part of that group. And that, as I said earlier, was mostly about answering questions like, is this traffic light really off or not, or providing some guidance to say, can you go here or there? These kinds of things are what they are trained on.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: And that's what you train the operative?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Yeah.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: And how do you train them? Is it virtual, in person? Do they come to the headquarter, get to know San Francisco?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Yeah, it's a good question. My sense is we train them in person through virtual, like all, you know. We have all the kinds of trainings for them.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Great. And I'm sorry, this is probably another HR operation question. How often do we renew your employees or the operative trainings?

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: I do not have that answer right now.

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: No, think if I understand you correctly, it's the training schedules of the remote assistance operators.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: It is because I think what, you know, the role we also have role planning, like CTA, SFMTAs constantly on project construction work and also upgrading our infrastructures. So it's also very important to know how often you do training, and you conduct training, and you renew training. So then we make sure that your operators are effective and efficient.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: I'd add in there. I think echoing everything Sarai was saying that we just heard a lot about how you need to update your emergency protocols after today's meeting. How long is it going to take for your remote operators to adjust the new protocols that you're committing to today?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yeah, I totally understand the question, and thank you for clarification as well. I do not have those specific numbers to share today, but this is an easy follow-up with your office to make sure that we're absolutely 100% correct.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you. I'm sorry, members of the public. I know that there's lots of feelings and we all have strong opinions about these, but we do have a rule at the board of no audible outbursts. You will get your two minutes of public comment, I promise. But if we could just keep this going, that would be really great. Thank you.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: The comment again, please save

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: We're doing public very best.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you. Chair Melgar, your questions.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you. So I do have a few questions. So thinking back, Mr. McGee, at your initial presentation, as a private company providing transportation services, it seems that you are looking at the sort of risk and output, or investment risk calculation in terms of the number of miles that you provided this service everywhere over time. And that your safety, you know, numbers based on that framework are low. And I get that. For our, you know, Office of Emergency Management, our Fire Department, our Police Department, the calculation, of course, is different, completely different, because we're assessing loss of life and safety based on incident or, you know, particular moments where their loss of life potential is great. So that's how we are assessing it. And if any particular actor is in the way of that, our calculation is really different. So when you talked about incident management protocols, Mr. Cooper, you are talking about incidents, like individual incidents. And you have 70 people based in The Philippines, in Arizona, in Michigan doing the management of those individual incidents all over the country. But you see how that calculation is so different when you assess it based on one potential catastrophic incident with high potential loss of life versus a system that's built on individual, you know, incidents here and there, where there's like one car having problems in Austin or in you know. So, it seems to me that your system is built for something entirely, and you haven't really thought about the possibility of this. So, of course, I'm wondering if any of you actually live in San in the San Francisco Bay Area. Do you? Yeah? So you know that we're in earthquake territory. So I am the oldest member of this committee. And I was here during the nineteen eighty nine Loma Prieta earthquake, where we had catastrophic loss of power, but also loss of life in San Francisco and in LA County at the same time. Both cities where you have a pretty large footprint. So I, like actually, like Mary Ellen Care, Director Carroll, lose sleep sometimes over our systems and what we do, imagine that tomorrow and this is totally possible we have a catastrophic event where we have loss of life and the possibility of having to mobilize emergency responders and protocols at the same time as there is a power outage in San Francisco and LA at the same time, with 70 support personnel in Arizona, Michigan, and The Philippines supporting us all. So we would be in trouble, right? So it seems like we would have to almost rebuild the system that you have to address both the need for individual incident management protocols, and also the potential for a catastrophic event. So in addition to earthquakes, we have climate change. And that is leading to floods, you know, all sorts of other catastrophic things that happen with our infrastructure. So it seems like, you know, in terms of the risk, you know, you are at risk for not just municipal regulation to address these issues, but also perhaps private legal risk from folks who may be caught in situations where they wouldn't have otherwise. So I'm wondering, I know you can't make commitments and give us numbers off the bat right now. But is there a willingness to engage in that visioning, not just with our municipality, but people around it, to address this lack of infrastructure in terms of your company for these potential events.

[Michael McGee (Public Policy, Waymo)]: Yeah, I'm happy to address that and defer to my colleagues if they have more to add. Absolutely, yes, there's a willingness. And as you mentioned, our intent today is not to deflect questions or anything like that, but we recognize it's difficult to answer a hypothetical scenario of if a car were in this instance or if this certain type of natural disaster was happening, our aim is to have robust resiliency procedures that will stand up to any type of incident. We've acknowledged today again that these did not meet our standards during the outage. But to your question, yes, there is a willingness. The other things I wanted to mention, you asked about San Francisco Bay Area. I'm a native of the Bay Area. Absolutely, it's not lost on us that earthquake territory is paramount here. It's something that we are thinking about. Our company is from the Bay Area. We have offices here. Many, many of our employees are here. You mentioned climate change. There's a reason our fleet is 100% electric vehicles. We're concerned about that as well. We're thinking about that as well. And to the earlier question around the remote assistance operators, I just want to mention the vast majority of responses to the power outage was coming from operators in The United States. Chinmay has already addressed this multiple times, I think, but I just want to be clear that there is no the none issues that were happening during the outage were due to those operators being abroad. So apologies for the longer answer, but the short one is yes, we're absolutely willing to consider those you mentioned.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. No, mean, I think that's really great. We, of course, as legislators, we're eager to legislate and regulate. And because your fleet goes between county lines, I am particularly interested in the fact that we have just extended Waymo to our airport, which is not within our county lines. It is in the unincorporated area of San Mateo County. I do have lots of questions, and I will ask of SFO staff, who I understand are here, about how we're dealing with that. Because we heard from our director of emergency management, our fire folks, I have lots of questions how all those things would happen at SFO. But it would behoove us to have your system be able to respond no matter where Waymo's are, or if they're in between counties, or making trips between San Mateo County, San Francisco County, or Marin, or Alameda, or wherever it is that you expand to. Because that would be the easiest or most efficient way to save human life if something terrible were about to happen. So I want you to respond to us. I also sort of want you to respond to the moment and be able to build a system that is, you know, responsive. Okay. Supervisor Chen,

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: I guess.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Just one more question. Thank you. Thank you, chair Melgar. Just one more question. I just learned that cars are all electric cars. So what is the contingency plan if the charging station itself is at a power outage? Like, you deposit on the cars back to I just want to love to learn more.

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yes. Yes. And and thank you for the question. If you remember back to when we we mentioned around 3PM, we initiated that defleet. A large region reason for that was because we experienced a loss of power at some of those facilities, so we were removing those vehicles from service to prevent any operational issues or further congestion that could be appearing on the streets. So that was in response to the PG and E outage. We did have site impact, we were actively responding to that. Also at that time, we were not seeing large operational issues as it relates to congestion from our vehicles, etcetera, that we did see at approximately that 5PM to 6PM time frame. So just to be direct, we were responding to that site power outage by removing vehicles from the fleet to mitigate any charging issues that we may have.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Actually, have a one follow-up question on that. Because in the PUC filings directly related to Supervisor Chen's a good question there was power outages at Waymo facilities on that day as well. And did that also affect the operations of the vehicles on the fleet as well?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: So we were removing the vehicles

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Because of those power outages at those Weyville facilities?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: From the fleet in response to the power outages.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: And is there backup power at the facilities themselves?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: I do not have the specifics on backup generation powers for those particular sites and facilities.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: And what is the contingency plan when these types of outages happen? Talked a lot about today about contingency plans for the vehicle fleet. What are the contingency plans for when your facilities are out of power?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yes. Thank you for the question, Supervisor. In terms of understanding the concern of the question, is this in relation to our specific sites or headquarters, Yes. Those as I mentioned, maybe a good point to clarify as well, the incident response team of those individuals that were called into action, you know, from in response to the PG and E outage. As I mentioned, have some 120 plus staff who are some of our most senior individuals at the company who convene to work out a lot of these challenges. We also have emergency action plans as well that we all enact. We also have a facilities on call function that we will bring in for extra consult to ensure the safety of our staff, first and foremost.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Should we do that going forward?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: We do that today.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Chair Melgar, you want to invite the airport to follow-up on your questions?

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Mean, I actually just wanted to follow-up a question. So you mentioned you have 100 plus staff member. You also have an emergency action team. How many people is in that emergency action team? Are they based in San Francisco?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: In terms of the emergency action team, when I refer

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: to You were just mentioning. I just want to understand a little bit more about the staffing.

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Understood. So, we the incident coordinators who come in to ensure that we have adequate command and control over a high impact event. The majority of those staff are based in The United States. I haven't got the exact percentage breakdown on the top of my head, but a lot of those staff are also based in the Bay Area.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: So the 100 plus 120 plus staff, it's in the state?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Just to be clear on the on the differentiation. We we have 120 plus subject matter experts which are a variety of different on call teams representing

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: On call teams.

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Like operations, facilities, engineering, those types. Then we also have a separate cadre of emergency response folks who are able to respond to initiate that command and control of

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: the situation. So, many of the coordinators were involved in the December outage?

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: For the December 20 outage?

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: On December 20 outage.

[Sam Cooper (Program Manager, Incident Response, Waymo)]: Yeah, we had two coordinators involved in that direct response. Those just to be clear, those are just the coordinators of the incident. We had multiple on call teams involved. I don't have the exact numbers off the top of my head, but it's safe to assume it's a big number.

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Chairman Allure. Yes.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: So as I mentioned, I do have specific questions. Thank you, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Jane, of the airport folks. So I see Diana here. I don't know if it's you or Nora. Thank you. So Diana, thank you for being here today. Not a problem. So I know that SFO has a pretty robust emergency management plan.

[Alejandra (Public commenter)]: Yes.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: And I know that you just extended the right to operate to Waymo. So I'm wondering if your emergency management plans involves Waymo. And looking back at the December 20 incident, which predated both of those things, I am wondering if you're looking at updating that differently based on what had happened. If there is a loss of power or access in San Mateo County, in the unincorporated area of San Mateo County, if that changes what you guys are thinking in terms of protocols.

[Deanna Volak (Government Affairs Manager, SFO)]: Thank you, Supervisor Melgar. Deanna Volak, government affairs manager with SFO. After listening to a lot of the conversations with our first responders team, I will go through some of the specifics that have come up that are related to SFO. One, as you said, we have a very sophisticated emergency and communications response team that has been actively in communication with Waymo's team ever since they were allowed to go through phase three, which is the autonomous vehicles without a driver present. They have been mapping and having the drivers present for the last year. So, now phase three was in, as you mentioned, January 29. We have participated in multiple first responder trainings between our airport personnel and Waymo. We have direct contact with Waymo's remote assistance team. They actually have an on-site Waymo rescue team that's present during the day, and they are required to respond to an event within ten minutes. If the event requires towing, the Waymo rescue team has resources, but SFO actually has our own on-site tow trucks, as well as a contractor with a tow company to respond to incidents. As you can imagine, any type of blockage or power outage, we are prepared for just in a general situation. We have backup power generators to support our traffic signals in the event that happens. And our we have on-site police and fire departments, as you know, who are stationed on-site to respond to any event 20 fourseven. So, our campus is a little more enclosed and tightly controlled as opposed to a citywide incident. But we are in active communications learning from the experience of our city in December and ongoing reactions to that. I can show you in if it's helpful on the projector that our terminals are located about a mile and a half from the actual pickup and drop off location of Waymo. They are currently at our rental car center. So, that was also decision to keep that separate in the event if an incident happens. There a geofencing was also brought up. So, in the event that an incident happens, we can contact our Waymo center and let them know that that geofence needs to be initiated. I think that is a lot of the discussions that our current city departments are having with Waymo, But because the airport has a different permitting system for its property, we have integrated a lot of these systems into play with our current system.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you so much. That was very clear and comprehensive overview. So people who are getting off an airplane will take the air tram to the rental car center, and that's where they would get So it is an actual physical place where the Waymo's are. Correct. And there's no role for any electronic managing of where the Waymos are within the airport because they're going to be at the rental Correct. Car

[Deanna Volak (Government Affairs Manager, SFO)]: Right now, they are directed to go to the rental car center and access the terminals through the air train. But there's no virtual queuing system or anything like that.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: But in terms of drop offs, people are coming to the terminals It's in Wayne

[Deanna Volak (Government Affairs Manager, SFO)]: all rental car center. When Pickups and drop offs, same location.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Both. Okay. So you mentioned thank you. That's really helpful. So in terms of you mentioned that in your negotiations to building these protocols, you have a built in contractor in case there is a possibility or a necessity for towing or getting an AV. Is what I heard you say?

[Deanna Volak (Government Affairs Manager, SFO)]: No, that's what we have already because of our enclosed system, and it's a circular path, we already have two on-site tow trucks and a contract with a tow company in case any situation happens. But we can employ that in the event a Waymo does not work.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: In the event it were a Waymo that was disabled, that needed to be towed, would you then pass on the cost to Waymo? Is that part of your deal or your understanding?

[Deanna Volak (Government Affairs Manager, SFO)]: That I do not I'm not aware of, but I can follow-up and get

[Alejandra (Public commenter)]: Okay. That

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: Thank you.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: That's it. Okay. Thank you very much. Those are my questions. And thank you for the clarity and the presentation. No problem. You.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you. Supervisor Chen, any other questions? Thanks. I want to thank Waymo and all the city departments for coming here as well and answering the questions. I'll have some comments after public comment. But we will now open to public comment so people can line up for speaking for two minutes each. I want to remind everyone in the audience that to please focus your comments in the context of the December twenty twenty five blackout. That is what this hearing is agendized for. Love to hear what your experience was like that day. I know there's a lot of feelings about autonomous vehicles more broadly, but we have to keep the comments focused on on that facet.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Just a moment. So land use and transportation will now hear public comment on agenda item number two before we begin I do want to real quick invite David Cruz back up to address the audience real quick to introduce his services for folks who are speaking Spanish. And everyone if you want to participate in the discussion please line up to speak along that western wall it is challenging to hear the speaker so if you can keep it down out there and also not interrupt our proceedings with applause or any other interruptions let's get david cruz if you could please on the mic. Mister Cruz, can we get interpretation of the comments, please?

[David Cruz (Spanish Interpreter, Intergraphics)]: Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Jose Enriquez. I've been a driver for more than ten years. I've had more than one experience with Waymo outside of December's, and there are many unreported events that have gone by. What we have heard from the representatives from Waymo and the city representatives is it's something that we can understand that is very clear, that the outage messed up the city's ability to work. And Us drivers were the ones that continue working that kept the city moving. As much as Waymo wants to wants to be better, they are still under trial. There'll never be a reality for me because they can't supersede what humans can do. We react at the moment, and they can't. Based on that, you need to legislate, and safety depends on the drivers. A robot doesn't give the same level of priority as humans do. And December 20 was very clear that they are still on trial, and the city cannot just continue just being on trials.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much for your comments. Do we have anyone else who will be using spanish interpretation? Okay. Thank you so much. Let's have the next speaker please.

[Joel Kamisher (SEIU 1021, School Crossing Guards)]: Hi. I'm Joel Kamisher, the union representative, SEIU ten twenty one for the school crossing guard. I'm happy to hear that you and the waymo people are working together to try and improve things because these disasters can and will happen at any time. I'm sorry the Waymo people left because I wanted to say that I appreciate your working with them, but in the future I think you should include some representatives from the unions like SEIU and the Teamsters who represent thousands of city workers. And some of these issues might slightly vary from the initial intent, but people have come here for several hours, so I hope you will have a little bit of leeway to for some people to discuss some specific issues that weren't from the December incident but could happen in the future. As for me, the school crossing guards are a vital part of of the this protection and we've heard that there have been some incidents in the past where waymo cars didn't recognize the crossing guards there was NBC TV investigation I think they found about 30 people that had close calls and there were probably more people that didn't report them because they just figured, well, it was a close call, but I wasn't hurt. And I'm hoping the way more people would work with us to try and deal with this unique issue. As for the school crossing guards, as I said, we are a vital part of public safety, and I'd like to make sure they meet with us and take care that we would we can be included to try and help protect people. So, I will just pass it on to our union president here and the other Thank you Mr. Camerrill.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Have the next speaker please.

[Theresa Rutherford (President, SEIU 1021)]: Good afternoon supervisors. Supervisor Melgar, good to see you again. Thank you for this hearing. I just want to first my name is Theresa Rutherford, president of SEIU ten to one. We represent over 60,000 members across Northern California. I want to speak to quickly the inherent danger that Waymo poses to citizens and to fellow pedestrians. The December 20 incident highlights that clearly In the medical field, there is a term called the golden hour. That is the first sixty minutes where you can actually save a life. It speaks to stroke. It speaks to heart attacks. Within those sixty minutes, there is the greatest chance for survival. And so to have emergency vehicles being blocked, to not be able to respond, poses an inherent life and death risk to all citizens in San Francisco and, by extension, in The United States or wherever Waymo operates. Waymo also impacts the livelihood of the drivers who created this industry, who made this industry functional, and who are now facing the impacts of having AV replacing them as human beings and these are real workers so we urge you to hold them accountable and we urge you to create checks and balance for waymo as this process is rolled out thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much. Let's have the next speaker, please. Just a reminder, we need to move on to the next speaker. Please don't interrupt with your applause. Next speaker, please.

[Julie Fisher (SEIU 2015)]: Julie Fisher, SEIU, 2015. It just so happens on that day, I was in a paratransit van accompanying my partner. We're being driven home, and when the driver, and they are the best drivers, reached Market Street, getting ready to cross Market Street, probably close to the Civic Center, three Waymos, definitely two, but I believe three, were holding the traffic on one lane. And we were behind the third one. Because these drivers know what they're doing, they navigated in spite of the fact that people were having trouble doing a respectful job on the four way stops. So I want to thank you for your questions today, supervisors. And I want to thank everybody who's come, because this is still an issue that is harming our community. You know, we arrived home safely because we had a competent driver, but that intersection, and I imagine all the intersections, were extremely complicated. People weren't in tune with what they needed to do. We needed more staff than we had on the streets for the traffic control, just like Waymo needs more staff to protect us in these circumstances. So, thank you again for your time. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

[Mark Bruberg (Taxi Workers Alliance board member)]: Thank you, supervisors. Mark Bruberg, cab driver and board member of the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance. And, we have been participating in the CPUC's rulemaking proceedings around autonomous vehicles and Waymo right from the start. And, we have been calling this an immature technology. I think the events of December 20 proved that it's an incompetent technology. It's an incompetent technology and it's an inadequate system to handle events of this magnitude. And and this is just a foretaste. If and when truly major disaster happens, and then it's probably a when, something like an earthquake, they they will be completely unable to to to handle it, and they will be balloting up the city in ways that are going to cost lives. You know, they talked about 1,593 stops during that that period of time on December 20, and those were only the stops of two minutes and more. They're not telling you about all the the others that maybe were a minute, a minute and a half, even thirty seconds, you know, can impede a first responder, and and and and and cause problems. Now, imagine that Waymo is going to grow in the same way that Uber and Lyft have grown, you know, with thousands or tens of thousands of vehicles on the street. This this is going to explode. It's it's not just Waymo. Behind them is Zoox, and behind them is Tesla, and behind them, there are 30 other companies that have testing permits from the CPUC. And the CPUC is is is not going to do very much about this. I believe you need to go to the state legislature and get some legislation that gives the city power over these vehicles. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Next speaker, please.

[Kristen Hardy (SEIU 1021, Regional Vice President; public commenter)]: Good afternoon, committee. My name is Kristen Hardy. I am currently the regional vice president for San Francisco Ten to one, but I am standing here as a San Francisco native and a proud parent. My daughter here is Kayla Craig. Our dog our dog Leo was killed by one of the Waymo's in the Western edition. So my kid wrote a few words. She's a little shy. I'm a read them on her behalf. Good afternoon, everyone. We are here today because our streets are not safe. And what happened recently makes that very clear. On November 30 in the Western edition, my dog was hit by a self driving car operated by Waymo. This was heartbreaking. But more than that, it was frightening. If a car cannot see and avoid a dog on a neighborhood street, how can we trust it around children, seniors, people with disabilities, cyclists, and pedestrians? Street safety is not just numbers in a report. It is real life. It is the people who walk these sidewalks every day. It is the families who cross these streets. Our neighborhoods are built for people, not for experiments. Self driving cars are being put on streets that are already busy and complicated as a trial for a rollout of other cities and states. We have narrow roads, double parked cars, construction areas, slow streets, school zones, and most importantly, emergency vehicles that need to be able to properly respond to emergencies within our city and communities. People who make quick decisions. Real life is not perfect or predictable, and robot taxis do not have instincts or reflex to be able to properly respond or stop in unpredictable instances. There is no human driver behind the wheel to react with a common sense or quick judge judgment. So when a self driving car makes a mistake, who suffers? Not the company, not the executives, the community does. Safety should never come second. It should never be tested on real people in real time. The people of San Francisco deserve streets that put people over profit, safety over speed, responsibility over experiments. We are not against technology. We are against putting lives at risk without our permission.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much. Speaker's time is concluded.

[Kristen Hardy (SEIU 1021, Regional Vice President; public commenter)]: Thank you. Hear for your next

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: speaker please.

[Ashley (Public commenter)]: Afternoon. I'm Ashley, the proud sister of Kayla. I wasn't going to say anything, but after today, we learned there were response delays. We learned there are gaps in training. We learned there are operational issues still being fixed, and yet these vehicles are still on our streets. This may have started as an exciting vision, a futuristic idea funded by people with resources and influence, but innovation without execution is negligence. Communities should not be the testing ground for a dream that was not fully prepared for real world consequences because as of today, two animals are already dead. We should not have to wait for a human life to be lost before action is taken. Safety must come before ambition. So as of today, we have to ask, what will it take for real change? And I do appreciate all of you for the intentional questions that you asked today. Excite, or grateful to be here, so thank you again.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much for your comments. Let's have the next speaker please.

[Hector Castellanos (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: Hi, how are you board of directors? Good afternoon. My name is Hector Castellanos. I'm a driver from Uber and Lyft for more than a decade, from the change years. And there is one thing that the way more they never gonna be replaced is the human factor. We know what to do when it's an outage, when the light is not working. Actually, when we just go and get a passenger that have disability, we can just go down and help the passenger to get into the car. Waymo is never going to do that. So it's very important to support the drivers and get our streets safe and also police protect our jobs. It's scary to hear how Waymo have already millions of drive drivers and I mean millions of rights. That's our our job, you know, please protect our job. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much for your comments. Let's have the next speaker please.

[Mike Latendre (Public commenter, San Diego)]: Good afternoon. First I'd like to thank SEIU seven twenty one for allowing me to come here today and to the committee for having this hearing. My name is Mike Latendre and I'm from San Diego. Understanding the parameters of this hearing, I'm gonna ask committee for a little leniency and indulgence while I read a brief statement. I empathize with the city of San Francisco for being the petri dish for autonomous vehicles. While we do not currently have autonomous vehicles operating in San Diego, they are currently mapping out the city for possible deployment in early summer of this year. Hence, the outcome of these hearings will affect us also. All robotics use artificial intelligence, meaning they are given a set of commands to result in a specific outcome. They are reactive. A human being has perception. When all of us in the room hear a siren, we immediately become hyper alert. We look in our rearview mirrors. We check down the streets. We ascertain where the vehicle is coming from. Then we look for an exit strategy to allow that vehicle time to pass safely. Waymo does not. Maybe when we develop AGI, artificially generated intelligence, for those of you who watched iRobot, that's what that was, they will possess the ability to be perceptive, to read a room, and to react accordingly, to not impede progress of a vehicle. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. To the next speaker, please.

[Mike Robinson (Public commenter, Lyft driver)]: My name is Mike Robinson, and I'm a Lyft driver for eleven years. And I've been with the SEIU since 2017 and the California gig workers union. I strongly urge you to stand with the California gig workers union, SEIU, and the teamsters to keep our streets safe in California. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Next speaker please.

[David Canham (SEIU 1021)]: Thank you supervisors afternoon david canham ten to one. It's clear based on testimony of uber today that they were not ready they are clearly not prepared for major incidences like the December 20 incident and anywhere else including San Francisco, you'd think that by now they would have been taken off the streets pending you looking into them being actually ready for an incidences like that could happen. Instead, they've been given they've been rewarded for incidences like December 20. They have been given greater access to the airport, greater access to Market Street instead of limited access. We we we we want to work with your supervisors. I know you don't make the decision. CPSU, which is in bed with these folks, they're completely bored off. They they are not gonna stop them until we change the the the composition of that body, but we wanted to join states like New York, Illinois, Washington, Virginia, where they're contemplating limiting auto autonomous vehicles, not increasing autonomous vehicles. But we also want you as San Franciscans I'm sure most San Franciscans also care about the drivers. Have 800,000 drivers in California who it's a livelihood whose families depend on them providing the service that they provide. This industry could be completely wiped out in a matter of few years if these vehicles are not restricted. So we hope to by the way, I wanna tell you that we have not found any f we we don't know how the airport granted that permit to to Uber, to waymo we have no idea we cannot find any record of any process that was followed for them to be given that permit just so you know you may want to look into that thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much for your comments to the next speaker please.

[John Conley (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: My name is john conley I've been with uber approximately six years I have over 17,000 trips 95% of those being in city here. Whammo is based on three factors electricity, a cell connection, and programming. If no cell connection they become a paperweight on the road. Program doesn' understand what' going on they become a paperweight on the road they block traffic and will continue to do so. There' nothing that they can program that can be contingent on every aspect that you would experience on the road driving is a dynamic task they' attempting to apply a linear program to a dynamic task it is an impossibility for them to make a rational decision where a human driver says well I' not going drive into that construction zone or I' not going to cross that police tape or I' about to take my car into an active shootout with police with bad guys that endangers the drivers and endangers the passengers and where' wham o doing that' where they go because they don' have any type of rationale to do anything different. I'm also a certified medic. Response time is everything. What I heard from whammo today is pick up a phone and wait. Seconds, minutes, hours count. If you're in a fire situation, if you're in a medical situation, especially here in San Francisco, one block road can lead to several block roads all over the system. And that' just a fact. I indicated this red light contingency of when lights are out this is my personal experience.

[Chinmay (Chinmay) Jain (Director of Product Management, Waymo)]: Thank you so

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: much for your comments.

[John Conley (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: Thank you for having me.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Let' have the next speaker please.

[Joseph (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: Thank you good afternoon supervisors my name is Joseph and I' a rideshare driver in the San Francisco Bay Area I' been driving for about ten years I drive for both uber and lyft and I have, like, 25,000 rides. I know you guys wanted to concentrate on the blackout. But, you know, I have to bring something up because it's been it really bothers me. I've been purse my personal experience is that I had a near collision. This was in the DeBose Triangle. I have a passenger, and I'm driving, and I have to slam on the brakes. A Waymo dashes in front of me, runs a red light. I almost hit it. Now, initially, I just thought, well, there's some kinda crazy thing that, you know, I should have saved the tape and whatnot. But a couple weeks later, I'm driving down Market Street, and the same thing happened to a a vehicle in front of me had a slam on the brakes near Noe in Market. So these things are running red lights, and it's just it's just driving me nuts because I talked to first responders, policemen, and I asked them, does this does this happen? They say, yes. It does. And I'm you know, what kind of who is regulating these people? Who says that they can run through red lights? I mean and this has been going on. And as far as I know, it still happens every once in a while. I just find that absolutely incredible. I hope maybe you guys can find out who approved that and and do something about that because I just think that's just wild. Also, I just wanna mention I'm deeply concerned about the expansion of these vehicles. And one of the things I wanna do is expand to the airports. Now the airports rides to the rideshare drivers are still the few rides that we consider profitable, most of us. And if they are allowed to go to the airport, you're gonna take one of the last ways that we can make a living. Many of us drivers will suffer a lot. I just want you to know that. We may be exiting business if Thank that you so much.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Next speaker, please.

[Nicholas Calvar (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: Good afternoon board committees my name is Nicholas calvar from stock in California I' a rideshare driver I' been driving since 2016. I got my license 1994 17 years old been driving since then all the way I' about to be 50 this year so my concern is the safety because we' accountable we get drivers license we get tested we get regulated by uber and lyft If we do something really funky we get suspended. Me my concern with way more they get a full license for all the cars like it's one entity. Why not each vehicle be treated like a driver and be penalized? We don't get penalized. So that' my concern right there so I don' know why d m v or I know the national transportation highway transportation and d m v doesn' allow them to be on the freeways but sooner or later that' going to get bumped out and they' going to be able to go on those freeways too so if this is going to be a concern on the roads we know like for example like Bernal Heights Twin Peaks they have two way traffic and the space is physically only for one lane what does the emergency needs service needs to go up there they're stuck They' stuck. So you know that' my concern. That' the only thing you know. So thank you for your time. I made it short and brief for you so you know the next person has another concern. So have a good one take care.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Next speaker please.

[Elias Nakash (Public commenter)]: Hello. Thanks for listening to me. My name is Elias Nakash. I'm originally from a country called Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I moved here in 1971, and because my brother was going to UC Berkeley studying, and my uncle was working at San Francisco State, and they were, on the side, they were doing transportation. They had a taxi medallion, and so they were trying to convince me to put my name for a medallion list. So, finally, in 1994, I put my name. And, first is, I was doing shuttle in San Francisco, and then I started driving taxi. And eventually, my medallion came, and I managed to do taxi medallion. But then finally, there was it was $250,000 That, so I managed to sell my medallion. I was very fortunate, but I was studying music here. And so, the bottom line, you know, I love technology. That's good. But it's, you can't make a living doing Uber anymore. Right now, Uber takes 60% of the drivers. So now, with or Waymo coming up and doing all of this, that's not good for, you know, for us. So, anyway, think about it. Waymo technology is nice, but we have to make a living too, as Uber and Lyft drivers, which I've done for many, many years. Thanks for your time.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much for your comments. To the next speaker, please.

[Elena Del Campo (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: Hi. My name is Elena Del Campo. I live in Redwood City, and I work as an uber and lyft driver for the last ten years up here in San Francisco. What I would really like to know is if the federal aviation has had autopilot in the air airplanes for over sixty years but still require a pilot to be in the cockpit at all times why do these cars why are they any different they' not any safer were actually safer in the air than behind these cars I see these cars on a daily basis run red lights almost hit pedestrians as they' edging forward about ready to run the red light. They cross into my lane almost broadsiding me. Actually had jokes and bets with riders in my car betting them that I'll bet you this Uber, this this Waymo right next to me is gonna cross over in the middle of the the the intersection and try to cut me off. Sure enough, I win the bet every single time. They are the worst cars, and why are they allowed to drive in the taxi lanes when we are not? We are the same. That's it. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much for your comments. Let's have the next speaker please.

[David Cruz (Spanish Interpreter, Intergraphics)]: Okay. So my name is Joe Andres. I'm a resident of San Francisco. I'm here because I I witnessed what happened in December 20. And I'm here to tell you that they're not safe because on that day, the I'm I'm one of the persons that experienced what happened on the intersection of King And Harrison. There was so much craziness going on that the person that was driving behind me hit me. It wasn't it wasn't a big accident. Nothing bad happened. But I'm saying that it's not safe because they cut you off. They don't use the signals when they're turning. They don't so I don't understand how we're working here. Right? They park wherever they want. The cops don't issue them tickets. And the way the way more workers here, they said they said whatever they were thinking, and they left. They didn't wait for the drivers to be heard by them and the safety concerns that we have because and all the questions that you had, they didn't answer in in in exactitude. They didn't give you exact numbers or stats. All they did was evade, evade, evade the answers.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Thank you for the interpretation. Let's have the next speaker, please.

[David Cruz (Spanish Interpreter, Intergraphics)]: Okay. So my name is Julia. Given that what's happening, it's not just given what's happening is not just here in San Francisco, but also in Sunnyvale, I drive inside and outside this area. I feel that these things, and I cannot call them cars because they're not driven by a by a human, they they break the driving rules. On Thursday, I saw that a car was turning left and almost lost control in an intersection that was heavily heavily that was heavily busy by by walk by people walking, and a lady almost was taken out when she was trying to cross, and then the car didn't know what to do. Didn't know whether if it was to go forward or back. We need we we here, we need to drive defensively because of all the people walking, all the people driving, we as drivers are the ones responsible for all of those around us and inside the car. So the car is a ticking bomb. It's a ticking bomb, and we need to be fully cautious to be able to operate them, but they're just creating problems. And I almost got a ticket because of them.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much for your comments. Thanks once again for the interpretation. Let's have the next speaker, please.

[David Cruz (Spanish Interpreter, Intergraphics)]: Okay. Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Manuel. Us Uber and Lyft drivers, we are part of the San Francisco and Bay Area economy. We have with Waymo, we have been affected economically. We are professional drivers and give quality service to all older older individuals, children, people with disabilities, medical conditions, and we provide the utmost quality service. Safety is not an option. It's our priority.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much for your comments. Let's have the next speaker please.

[Alejandra (Public commenter)]: Hello. My name is Alejandra. I do work for more than twelve years. I start working for these companies and because I'm single mother. I have kids waiting for me every day at home. But in the past, I worked in eight hours a day. I can rest two days a week. But now I'm working for twelve hours because in the city, I take way more take the 80% of the trips. And I I can work in the city. I'm going to work in the airport, and I stay for sixty minutes waiting for a one trip, just for one trip each hour. And now Waymo going to the airport. So where I need to go to work, I need to support my family. I pay my taxes in this city. I need support. I need protect communities, protect the drivers. I'm not the only people. There's so many drivers that work and sleep in the car, eating in the car. They're almost living in car. So what is the future for for our families? So, yes, I want to let us know this is a big problem, but the city, they're growing for communities, for families. And I can speak about Waymo because everybody know about the issues. Everybody know if I kill a dog in the city, maybe I'll be arrested and my license lost. How Weimar can do this? Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. So the next speaker, please.

[David Cruz (Spanish Interpreter, Intergraphics)]: Okay. My name is Senar Reyes. I'm just to let you know so you can have an idea of who us the drivers are. Two years ago, I used to earn about $500 a day working eight hours to ten hours a day. Now I'm now I'm earning about a $180 working approximately sixteen hours. We deal with the Lyft and Uber exploitation, and now we're deal with we're dealing with Waymo coming in. We don't know where we're gonna end up. We are being exploited, and now we are being reduced our our our earnings this year from almost now, and even more so now with about earning a $180 to 200 that I used to earn, now I'm really earning about a 150. I don't know how much how much we can take. We have people to feed. We have families to feed.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. To the next speaker, please.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you. Just a reminder to everyone to please focus public comment on the context of the blackout and emergency vehicle response in this time.

[Janice Jackson (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: Hi. Thank you, guys. I appreciate today. My name is Janice, and I'm originally from San Francisco, born and raised, but I now live in Sacramento, mic.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Pull up your mic.

[Janice Jackson (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: Okay. Okay. So, my name is Janice Jackson, and I'm originally from San Francisco, but I now reside in Sacramento, California. I've been driving for Uber for over ten years. And my major concern is Waymo is not in Sacramento as of yet. And me listening to all the concerns and all the accidents that's going on here in San Francisco, I would really like it for you guys to make sure that they have some better laws in place before they do get into Sacramento. That is a real big concern for me because listening like I said, listening to all the other concerns and the people and the accidents that went on before me and especially what happened on the December 20, it's it's great concerning that no one is behind the steering wheel of those cars. And there is no safety coming out of any of that. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. To the next speaker, please.

[Jason (Public commenter; Rideshare Drivers United)]: Hello. My name is Jason. I'm a Uber and Lyft driver. I'm here representing the 20,000 members of Rideshare Drivers United as well. I'm a San Francisco resident, District 5. I came here to get some answers today. I don't feel like we really got a lot of those answers. When you look at the way artificial intelligence works, it takes the average of previous events and tries to construct what to do at a given time. But when there's an emergency, by definition, that's not what's going on. And maybe a company can try to fix that by having thousands of people in a faraway country try to manage when things don't go well. I think we heard about how that went on December 20 and didn't really get any insight into what we might change about that. So we spent a lot of time talking about the problems that this has caused, the problems that Waymo causes, and I'm just not sure what they solve. We suddenly have all these problems when we're solving something that isn't there. I'm just not quite sure how to move forward but I think we do need to get more answers and I appreciate this. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: You so much for your comments. Have the next speaker, please.

[Darius (Public commenter)]: Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is Darius. I'm from San Jose, California. I'm also a member of SCRU, California Geek Workers Union. We all know what happened on 12/20/2025. Everybody has been talking about it. San Francisco traffic situation was paralyzed. Pets and pedestrians are being hit with the vey more vehicles. And as with any job where safety comes first, we have not yet achieved safety for our community members driving and crossing our streets. VEMO vehicles are known to be breaking traffic laws and interfere with the fire department police as well as medical personnel responses. There should be limitations on the number of vehicles on our streets so that the Uber and Lyft drivers pay does not get affected. I ask that the board stand with the gig drivers and other workers to make sure that our streets are safe and that we protect jobs for the drivers. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

[John Mahmood (Public commenter, rideshare driver)]: Good afternoon, board of supervisors. My name is John Mahmood. I've been a driver for almost eleven years for Uber and Lyft. Thank you for asking pointed questions of Waymo. They are able to do whatever they want without laws that affect them. You know, they hit a child, they block emergency vehicles. Hopefully, what you guys ask and what your conversations with emergency teams and with the CPUC will help Waymo be accountable, like we drivers are. And thank you, because that too might help the drivers. In the Bay Area alone, there's 250,000 drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area. They I know this is not specifically to the what happened, but, again, they they pay wages. They they put food on the table for their family. So, thank you for raising questions that might help them keep their jobs and make way more accountable. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Let's have the next speaker please.

[Unknown rideshare driver from Sacramento (Public commenter)]: Hello. Good afternoon supervisors. My name is and I'm a rideshare driver from Sacramento. Everyone in this room remembers the power outage this past December. While the city was in the dark, the truth about came to light. The second the grid flickered these genius machines turned into multi ton obstacles that paralyzed our streets. The harsh truth is that Waymo failed the city when we needed transportation the most. When the traffic lights went out, Waymo's didn't know how to navigate. They didn't know how to yield. They simply stopped blocking emergency lanes and creating gridlock that could have cost lives. They are programmed for a perfect world that doesn't exist, but do you know who didn't stop? We didn't. Human drivers. The people Waymo wants to replace, we're the ones out there in the dark. We used our judgment to navigate dead intersections. We got people home to their families. We were the safety net that got San Francisco while these expensive robots sat uselessly in the middle of the road. You cannot claim these vehicles are safer when they are the first things to break during the crisis. If you approve the their expansion, you are knowingly trading human reliability for corporate liability. We are the ones who keep the city moving. Waymo just gets in the way. So as you know, first of all, all the questions you guys asked today, we loved it. But I think we got the Thank

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: you for comments. Speaker's time has concluded. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please.

[Unknown public commenter (rideshare driver)]: Good afternoon, board of supervisor. My name is, and, I'm a ride share with her since now almost like ten years. And as a Buddhist philosophy, first, we are telling that self before others. So on behalf of all the divers today, I'm here sharing my some few my knowledge and my words to all of you. So today, almost like two hours, we are spending here, like, on December 28, what happened in San Francisco San Francisco City. On that day, I was also driving. So I don't want to more share about that because that that day, I was felt I'm driving to India or Nepal. So not only December 28 on that, I saw many incidents before that in San Francisco when the driverless come in the city. And, for me, you know, as a human driver, you know, in future, if we lose the job, how we can survive? How we save our life, our family? Then we have to fight for the our stomach of hungry. You know? So we had a pet war. We had a pandemic. Now in AI and robotaxia, whatever, the human lose the job, we have to fight for the food one day. And to people, we have become a hot homeless. People will come to the streets. That's why I feel not safe, you know, in the future, if the robotaxi come like that or AI, whatever. So also on top of that, as a human driver, as my chair, I would very short of my incidents before three years. I saved one life of my cost customer when they traveled to Napa. He got a stroke when we crossed the Bay Bridge. I called 911. I could save his life. If the robot can do can do that do that or not? That's my question and concern to all of us. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you so much for your comments. Let's have the next speaker, please.

[Unknown public commenter]: Good afternoon, supervisors. I wanna start out by thanking you for your time, your commitment, your steadfastness in working and standing up for drivers whose livelihood depends on safe driving conditions. I was driving the night of December 20, and I tell you it was anything but safe. I drove down Van S, and I saw a pile of Waymo's. I couldn't move away. I couldn't go forward. So I was personally stuck, supervisor, I know you want us to speak to that. I you don't want to hear my actual comment on the public record. But I do want to say that the livelihood of these 800,000 drivers who are now working to form a union so that they can get fair wages, fair working conditions depends on your solidarity with them. It does not depend on the success of Waymo. I have a kid who worked for Cruise for ten years. I know a lot about this industry. And I am telling you that no autonomous vehicle can replace the mind, the heart, the commitment, the dedication, and the talent of these drivers. So I hope that you will continue to stand with them and that you will consider to take the kinds of actions that other cities have taken that are limiting their scope or abandoning their scope as opposed to expanding their scope, which we just did at the airport, and I believe that David was correct without permit. I do wanna say the airport has been cooperating with us around the conditions of the drivers very well, and I want you to know that we very much appreciate your continue and rely on your continued commitment to make sure that these drivers' livelihood is protected and that the streets are safe for the rest of us. Thank you

[Kristen Hardy (SEIU 1021, Regional Vice President; public commenter)]: very much.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. To the next speaker, please. And if we have anyone else after this speaker who wants to give public comment from whom we have not yet heard, you can line up to speak along that western wall. Please begin.

[Unknown public commenter]: Good afternoon, chair, members of the committee. Thank you so much for holding this hearing, Supervisor Mahmood, and for your really thoughtful questions. I think a lot of answers were concerning to me, and probably to many folks, particularly around outsourcing of labor. I think we need a lot more information around that. I know it's very concerning for workers here, conditions, and the numbers of folks who are being outsourced to developing countries around this type of technology. Furthermore, you heard a lot of concerns about what happened the night of December 20. I live in the neighborhood. It was extremely concerning and chaotic. But this is not just about this one night you heard from many workers tonight. This is a series of years, decades of workers fighting for the right to organize from huge rideshare corporations like Uber and Lyft, and then finally winning the right to organize into a union after millions and billions of dollars from these corporations against the rights of workers to organize. Finally, we've won the right. And now our industry their industry is being degradated by these autonomous vehicle corporations. And it's extremely concerning not just about what happened on December 20, but it's interrelated it's interrelated, right, to all of these issues around affordability. Drivers having to come from Stockton, from Modesto just to try to make a living here in San Francisco. Drivers living in their cars, and now this is the next fight around human dignity and drivers trying to make a living wage is the outsourcing of jobs the degradation of jobs and labor and now the safety on our streets which we all pay taxes for you know these emergencies happening so please I know it's frustrating you can't do that much but let's limit their scope and let's prioritize human workers and labor. Thank you.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Thank you for your comments. Do we have anyone else who has public comment for agenda item number two? Madam Chair.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Okay, thank you so much. Thank you for everyone in the community who came to give us public comment on these issues. And again, thank you to Waymo and to our departments for having a very good and productive hearing. I will turn it over to Supervisor Mahmood to give oh, I'm sorry. Closed public comment. Thank you. Public comment is now closed. And I will turn it over to Supervisor Mahmood to provide any closing remarks.

[Supervisor Bilal Mahmood]: Thank you, Chair. And thank you to everyone who came out and gave public comment today. Your voice is are heard. I also want to thank Waymo for coming. I see your presence today as a commitment to safety going forward. But I hope you also take it as a call to action in your role as a major player in San Francisco. The role, the results of today will hopefully be heard, but also shows that there are dire consequences if we don't get public safety right in the context of emergency response. We heard today from Waymo about how a team of about 70 remote assistants helped their entire fleet manage tricky driving situations. We heard that that was not enough to handle the backlog that we saw during an outage from stuck vehicles and emergency dispatchers. We heard clear asks from our city departments about what they need from AV operators like Waymo. When a 911 dispatcher or firefighter picks up the phone, there needs to be someone on the other line. This is essential to the safe operation of AV service. We are concerned, or I'm concerned, about compliance with AB seventeen seventy seven, which will take effect on July 1. The requirements that the law put in place are a meaningful step forward to a safer and more productive relationship between AVs and the city, but I didn't have as much hope as I was hoping that those requirements may be met. The gulf between the thirty seconds that the law requires and the fifty minutes that we heard about today is massive. And to get to the point that we need to actually resolve that issue, it's clear that Waymo needs to expand staffing and be able to flex to a much larger workforce in emergencies. In the meantime, I hope Waymo lives up to their commitments to expand staffing, but also to the other requests that departments had today, interlinking systems between the fire department and Waymo, and also making improvements in collaboration with PD and other city departments so that we are not reliant on our first responders for roadside assistance. I hope that we can work collaboratively and proactively with Waymo and the city on interlinking those systems, creating emergency plans, and complying with state law when that takes effect in July. The rest, I move to file the hearing with your permission, Chair.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you. Supervisor Chen. Thank you,

[Supervisor Chyanne Chen (Vice Chair)]: Chair Melgar. I also just want to express my appreciation for Supervisor Mahmood for holding this hearing, and also my great appreciation for all the voices of labor that show up this afternoon. And also, thank you to the way more for sharing and coming today. And I do look forward to the next steps to address the operational and regulatory changes that are much needed moving forward. Thank you.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Thank you so much. We have a motion.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: On the motion offered by Member Mahmood that the hearing be heard and filed. Vice Chair Chen. Chen, aye. Member Mahmood, aye. Chair Melgar?

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Aye.

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: Melgar, Madam chair, there are three ayes.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Okay. That motion passes. Thank you. Mister clerk, do we have any other items on our agenda today?

[John Carroll (Committee Clerk)]: There is no further business.

[Supervisor Myrna Melgar (Chair)]: Okay. We are adjourned. Thank you.

[Mary Ellen Carroll (Director, Department of Emergency Management)]: SFGov TV, San Francisco government television.