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  • How Might We Reimagine Transportation Technology to Combat Forced Labor: Conference Explanations and Recommendations From the Law and Mobility Program’s Annual Conference 2023

    The LAMP Annual Conference 2023 considered how we might reimagine transportation technology in a way that combats the systemic vulnerabilities...

  • By The Numbers: Policing for Safety or Traffic Policing as Pretext?

    Ellen Partridge is the Senior Advisor, Mobility Innovation at Equiticity as well as the Senior Policy Advisor at the Shared-Use Mobility Center. “Half of all citizen-police interactions, more than 40% of all drug arrests, and over 30% of police…

  • Setting the Agenda: The Legal and Historical Context to Best Understand How Transportation Technology Might Be Regulated to Combat Forced Labor

    Transportation is a piece of all human activity. As individuals and as a society, the logistics of getting people and goods from one place to another is a question we answer countless times a day. Just today, billions of people drove to work, took the bus to school, used a rideshare to get to the store, or took the train into the city to enjoy an evening out on the town. This list does not even consider all the items people have ordered online which will be shipped and delivered to homes. Even more exciting is the innovation that inspired all the aforementioned modes of transportation; transportation technology has the amazing potential to make our lives easier, more efficient, and more equitable. But implementing all this technology requires labor, and the technology can only benefit those who have access to it. Most of us have never truly considered whose labor makes mobility possible. Relatedly, it is hard to imagine life without access to transportation if you are a person who has always known how they will get to work. This article will provide a framework to better understand one type of labor within the industry, exploited labor, also known as forced labor. Forced labor is part of the transportation industry and is also impacted by a lack of transportation. Without reliable and safe transportation individuals are at a higher risk of forced labor in other industries. The bottom line is twofold: considering the impacts that an increased demand for new technology will have on people who work in mines, in the supply chain, and in transportation as a service, as well as considering legal tools to maximize access to transportation for historically underserved communities in light of new technology. All this to say that this article will consider how society might reimagine the regulation of emerging transportation technology in a way that combats the systemic vulnerability that leaves people at risk of forced labor. This will include both the labor being performed to manufacture and operate the technology, as well as the impact on access to transportation of the user and nonuser. Though this article will largely analyze the role of automated vehicles, other innovations including reconfigured public transportation and electrification will also be considered. Transportation is at the heart of everything humanity does and yet this article will only scratch the surface of these issues.

  • Opportunities and Challenges for Deploying Connected and Automated Vehicles to Address Transportation Disparities in Urban Areas

    As the development and testing of connected and automated vehicles (CAV) accelerates, it is important for government stakeholders, planners, and policymakers to have a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities CAVs will bring to infrastructure, communities, and lifestyles. There is general consensus among scholars and transportation practitioners that CAV will “disrupt” transportation systems, land use patterns, and socioeconomic power structures as they exist today.The implications of CAV on transportation infrastructure have been the subject of numerous academic and professional studies, suggesting both positive and negative effects may occur. Furthermore, in an American context, transportation planning has historically contributed to the vast socioeconomic and racial inequities still seen today, so particular emphasis should be given to the potential for CAV development to compound equity issues. Regardless, the rapid development of CAV technology has led to a compressed timeline for planners and policymakers to put policies, plans, and infrastructure into place to prepare for the mainstreaming of CAVs, and the evolution of the current transportation system. In order to identify strategic ways to leverage CAV to best support communities of all scales, researchers at the University of Minnesota have gathered information from community members and stakeholders across the state. Building on previous research and community discussions surrounding CAV opportunities in Greater Minnesota, this project sought to understand the needs of transportation disadvantaged communities that have limited access to transportation due to level of income, ability, or service extent, and explores whether CAV could be an appropriate solution. This research particularly focused on such communities in the “East Metro” of the Twin Cities, with particular focus given to the east side of Saint Paul, downtown, and Frogtown areas. Much of the equity-related research conducted in the Twin Cities metropolitan area is focused on Minneapolis, and there is a relative gap in the literature for evaluating transportation challenges of the East Metro. Transportation is undoubtedly an issue for everyone, but these challenges are most difficult for individuals with limited access to transportation due to income, ability, or extent of service area. CAVs have the potential to mitigate some of these transportation challenges, but the policy measures discussed in this paper should be considered to ensure that CAV deployment does not recreate or exacerbate the inequities of today's transportation system.

  • Exceptional Driving Principles for Autonomous Vehicles

    Public expectations for automated vehicles span a broad range, from mobility for passengers, to road user safety, to compliance with the traffic code. In most ordinary situations, these expectations can be satisfied simultaneously. But these various expectations can also lead to exceptional scenarios where certain objectives, such as those related to safety, are in tension with road rules. Exceptional driving scenarios challenge motion planning algorithms in automated vehicles to find solutions that are legally grounded, ethically sound, and technically feasible. The general public’s familiarity with exceptional driving scenarios comes from the classic "Trolley Car" problem in philosophy, asking who should live and who should die in an unavoidable collision. These discussions tend to take a consequentialist view by framing the ethical action as the one that achieves the best outcome. By taking a different perspective that views driving as a social contract, the AV's ethical obligations are limited to meeting the duty of care owed to other road users. With this perspective, the existing legal system in the US provides a framework for choosing appropriate behaviors in exceptional driving cases and for answering the Trolley Car problem. This work outlines principles that prioritize care for humans, respect the authority of human-defined traffic law, and ensure that the vehicle avoids decisions that introduce unreasonable risks. Developing AVs that can legally and ethically negotiate exceptional driving scenarios is simply a matter of translating the principles into engineering requirements with no need for new laws or endless philosophical debate.

  • Are Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles a Practical, Ethical, and Sustainable option?

    The environmental impacts of the transportation industry have been at the forefront of mobility discourse for the last decade. With 27% of greenhouse gas emissions coming from transportation and a significant percentage of low-income households’ total earnings going to transportation (over 30% in some instances), the need to…

  • Will New Electric Buses Need a Mini Bar?

    Let’s talk about the stigma of the bus. Public transit in the United States is not particularly robust or well-funded compared to its European or Asian counterparts. The American bus system in particular is stigmatized; Americans associate the bus with poverty, crime, and filth. This stigma is not entirely unwarranted,…

  • Can Facial Recognition Software Within Transportation Technology Combat Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking?

    This blog post is the second in a series about facial recognition software in various forms of public and private means of transportation, as well as the greater public policy concerns of facial recognition tools. More posts about the relationship between transportation technology, FRS, and modern slavery will follow.

  • Mobile-Based Transportation Companies, Mandatory Arbitration, and the Americans with Disabilities Act

    Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and similar mobile-based transportation network companies (TNCs) have been involved in numerous legal battles in multiple jurisdictions. One contested issue concerns whether TNC drivers are employees or independent contractors. Uber recently lost this battle to some extent in the UK, but won it in California. Another issue concerns the TNCs’ use of mandatory (pre-dispute) arbitration clauses in their standard form service agreements with both drivers and passengers. These arbitration clauses purport to obligate such future plaintiffs to resolve any dispute with the defendant TNC outside of court and, typically, on an individual rather than a class basis. TNCs have had mixed success enforcing arbitration clauses contained in service agreements with their drivers under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). As for passengers, TNCs have been increasingly litigating disability-based discrimination claims brought against them and/or their drivers pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). These claims have largely arisen in two situations.

  • The Dept. of Labor Changes up the Employee vs. Contractor Debate for Gig Workers

    Last year I wrote about Uber and Lyft’s battle against a California law that required them to treat their drivers as employees, rather than contractors. Then, in November, California voters passed Prop. 22, which exempted app-based drivers from that law, something Claire covered in detail. Two recent actions…