COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE PUBLIC HEARING
STATE CAPITOL HARRISBURG, PA
IRVIS OFFICE BUILDING ROOM G-50
TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2 02 0 1:04 P.M.
PRESENTATION ON S.B. 1199 AND H.B. 2699 PERSONAL DELIVERY DRONES
BEFORE: HONORABLE TIM HENNESSEY, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE LYNDA SCHLEGEL CULVER HONORABLE MARCIA M. HAHN HONORABLE AARON D. KAUFER HONORABLE JOHN A. LAWRENCE HONORABLE LORI MIZGORSKI HONORABLE GREG ROTHMAN HONORABLE LOUIS C. SCHMITT, JR. HONORABLE MEGHAN SCHROEDER HONORABLE MARTINA A. WHITE HONORABLE MIKE CARROLL, DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN HONORABLE MARIA P. DONATUCCI HONORABLE SARA INNAMORATO HONORABLE STEPHEN KINSEY HONORABLE KYLE J. MULLINS HONORABLE ED NEILSON HONORABLE JENNIFER O'MARA HONORABLE PERRY S. WARREN
Pennsylvania House of Representatives Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 2
ALSO PRESENT: REPRESENTATIVE MEGHAN SCHROEDER REPRESENTATIVE BARRY JOZWIAK
COMMITTEE STAFF PRESENT: JOSIAH SHELLY MAJORITY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TORREY HOLLIS MAJORITY RESEARCH ANALYST MATTHEW RUCCI MAJORITY RESEARCH ANALYST MICHELLE WHITMYER MAJORITY ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
MEREDITH BIGGICA DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 3
I N D E X
TESTIFIERS
* * *
NAME PAGE
REPRESENTATIVE MEGHAN SCHROEDER PRIME SPONSOR OF H.B. 2699...... 5
MARK KOPKO DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF TRANSFORMATIONAL TECHNOLOGY...... 10
SAMUEL MARSHALL PRESIDENT, INSURANCE FEDERATION OF PENNSYLVANIA...... 2 9
SCOTT PAUCHNIK, SR. STATE AND LOCAL AFFAIRS REPRESENTATIVE, FEDEX CORPORATION...... 60
MELISSA MORGAN POLICY ANALYST, PENNSYLVANIA STATE ASSOCIATION OF TOWNSHIP SUPERVISORS...... 89
SUBMITTED WRITTEN TESTIMONY
~k ~k ~k
(See submitted written testimony and handouts online.) 4
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 * * *
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Good afternoon,
4 everyone. Welcome to this public hearing of the
5 Pennsylvania House of Representatives Transportation
6 Committee on personal delivery devices. The hearing bill
7 is on Senate Bill 1199. The prime sponsor is Senator Ryan
8 Aument. There is a similar bill in the House that is House
9 Bill 2699, and that is prime-sponsored by Representative
10 Meghan Schroeder. She is here today, and she will have a
11 statement for us in a few moments.
12 But welcome, and thanks for being here. Today’s
13 meeting is a combination of both an in-person and a remote
14 meeting. I will ask us here in the room to identify
15 ourselves and then we'll announce who has joined us
16 remotely from their offices. My name is Tim Hennessey.
17 I'm the Republican Chair of the Transportation Committee.
18 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Mike Carroll,
19 Democratic Chair, Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties.
20 MS. BIGGICA: Meredith Biggica, Executive
21 Director for Chairman Mike Carroll.
22 MR. SHELLY: Josiah Shelly, Executive Director
23 for Chairman Hennessey.
24 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Representative Meghan
25 Schroeder from Bucks County. 5
1 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFER: Representative Aaron
2 Kaufer, Luzerne County.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMIDT: Representative Lou
4 Schmidt from Altoona, Blair County.
5 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Okay. Thank you.
6 We also are joined by Representative Barry Jozwiak of Berks
7 County. I think I ’ve got everybody there. W e ’re also
8 joined virtually by Representatives John Lawrence, Perry
9 Warren, Kyle Mullins, Martina White, Marcia Hahn, Sara
10 Innamorato, and Lynda Culver. Oh, and Representative Maria
11 Donatucci from Philadelphia. So we have a pretty
12 substantial audience, both live and remotely.
13 If you are participating virtually, the Members
14 who are doing that, and you would like to ask a testifier a
15 question, please email Josiah Shelly, which is
16 [email protected], or Meredith Biggica, the Executive
17 Director for the Democrats, at [email protected].
18 We've also been joined remotely by Representative
19 Jennifer O'Mara of Delaware County.
20 First, I'll call on Representative Schroeder to
21 make some comments about her House Bill 2699.
22 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Good afternoon,
23 Chairman Hennessey, Chairman Carroll, and Members of the
24 Transportation Committee. Thank you for holding a hearing
25 today on Senate Bill 1199 and the companion legislation 6
1 that I have introduced in the House, House Bill 2699, to
2 regulate personal delivery devices, or PDDs, in the
3 Commonwealth.
4 Advances in smart and autonomous technologies
5 have never been more important. The arrival of a global
6 pandemic mandates the continued investment, creation, and
7 deployment of innovative technological tools and resources
8 to respond to consumer demand for contact list delivery,
9 support small businesses, create jobs, and enhance the
10 economy.
11 Personal delivery devices, PDDs, are the exact
12 type of technological advancement that can help businesses
13 and residents of the Commonwealth overcome these challenges
14 of these unprecedented times. PDDs are autonomous robots
15 designed to deliver packages from businesses to consumers
16 and from business to business within a small radius of
17 approximately three to five miles. These zero-emission
18 robots reduce congestion and pollution through the use of a
19 combination of sophisticated machine learning, artificial
20 intelligence, and sensors to travel on sidewalks and on the
21 shoulder of some roadways.
22 PDDs are safe, efficient, environmentally
23 friendly, monitored 24/7, equipped with GPS to navigate
24 around obstacles, and are capable of handling steep slopes
25 and curves, steps, and are stable on all terrains. 7
1 Personal delivery devices, PDDs, are designed to
2 deliver essential goods such as take-out food, groceries,
3 and auto parts from point-of-sale to a nearby home or
4 business in the same day without human contact. These are
5 not deliveries that are normally part of the day-to-day
6 package delivery network for companies such as UPS, Amazon,
7 DHL, or FedEx.
8 The purpose of developing and using PDDs is not
9 to displace traditional delivery service but to help
10 supplement operational and service efficiency for retail
11 businesses and ultimately the consumer. In fact, PDDs will
12 likely create new jobs such as high-tech machine experts,
13 software developers, and remote operators. PDDs are
14 uniquely equipped to become a critical resource available
15 to assist in the delivery of goods as customer demand for
16 goods delivered directly to the home or business continues
17 to increase dramatically.
18 The legislation before us today creates the basic
19 rules for the operation of PDDs in the Commonwealth. This
20 legislation includes requirements that businesses operating
21 PDDs submitted operations plan to PennDOT and maintain a
22 minimum of $100,000 in liability insurance on each device.
23 PDDs must obey the rules that govern pedestrian use of
24 sidewalks, including waiting at crosswalks, yielding to
25 vehicular traffic, and foot traffic. 8
1 Additionally, the legislation will establish
2 equipment requirements that enhance public safety such as
3 requiring each PDD to have unique ID number, a braking
4 system, visual lights, and other features to enhance the
5 visibility and awareness of PDDs.
6 Finally, the legislation incorporates a phaseout
7 of PDDs, which specifies that businesses operating PDDs
8 must have an employee accompany each device until the year
9 2022. Then, beginning in the year 2022, they must employ a
10 remote monitor who can control the device if necessary.
11 To date, the States of Arizona, Florida, Idaho,
12 Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and
13 Wisconsin have all enacted statutes allowing for deployment
14 and regulation of PDDs.
15 PDDs have quickly become a useful resource to
16 deliver food, medicines, essential goods, and supplies to
17 people's homes.
18 Thank you for holding this hearing today. Given
19 the tremendous positive impact that PDDs could have on our
20 Commonwealth, I hope you will join me in support of this
21 legislation, and I look forward to hearing from our
22 testifiers today. Thank you, Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Thank you,
24 Representative Schroeder.
25 I should announce that if any of our people show 9
1 up and don't have masks, we have masks available here so
2 they can stay. I ’ll ask all the Members and those watching
3 remotely to please mute your microphones unless you’re
4 asking a question.
5 And with that, I ’ll just say welcome to the
6 future. I think that many of the Members have seen the
7 video that we sent out along with the notice to give you an
8 idea of exactly what’s coming our way and apparently what
9 is already in place either as a pilot program or maybe
10 authorized specifically in several of our States in the
11 union. But, nonetheless, it represents the future,
12 especially for someone as old as me who will probably find
13 them a little bit disconcerting, you know, when I ’m
14 approached by robot coming down the sidewalk. Be that as
15 it may, w e ’ll get used to it. W e ’ll all have to get used
16 to it.
17 But as things happen, when drafters draft these
18 bills, they don’t cover everything. You can’t possibly
19 think of all the questions that people might come up with,
20 and that’s why w e ’re holding this informational hearing, to
21 see if we can solicit some comments with regard to Senate
22 Bill 1199 and House Bill 2699.
23 So, with that, you know, get your questions
24 ready. Our first testifier is Mark Kopko from the
25 Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. He will be 10
1 testifying virtually and then make himself available for
2 questions. He is the Director of the Office of
3 Transformational Technology. Frankly, I will admit that I
4 didn't know we had an office within PennDOT of
5 transformational technology. I'm like that we do, and I'm
6 glad we have someone that can enlighten us as far as what
7 the future holds.
8 So, Mark, if you are available, please sign in
9 and begin your testimony when you're ready.
10 MR. KOPKO: Sure. Good afternoon, everyone, and
11 thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about
12 Senate Bill 1199 and House Bill 2699.
13 Ensuring public safety has always been the core
14 function of PennDOT. However, with the arrival of a global
15 pandemic, PennDOT, like many organizations, has expanded
16 the way we look at safety. Reducing direct human contact
17 and supplementing the strained supply chain has become
18 critical to stopping the spread of COVID-19.
19 Emerging technologies, such as personal delivery
20 devices, PDDs, offer numerous benefits to overcome the
21 challenges of these unprecedented times. PDDs can be
22 utilized by restaurants and grocers to deliver food to the
23 doors of customers. PDDs can be utilized by logistics
24 companies to support last-mile deliveries. In some States,
25 officials are looking at automated vehicles to deliver 11
1 medical supplies between facilities.
2 PDDs are currently being operating in over a
3 dozen States and jurisdictions including Arizona,
4 California, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
5 Although these devices offer great potential,
6 especially during the current health crisis, PennDOT feels
7 that the proposed legislation in Senate Bill 1199, as
8 currently drafted, raises some safety concerns, allows for
9 some unintended operations, and overly restricts the
10 ability of local authorities to control operations.
11 PennDOT supports PPDs being regulated like
12 pedestrians. However, to ensure that PDDs operate in a
13 manner that complies with the provisions of Title 75,
14 Chapter 35, PDDs should be added to the definition of a
15 pedestrian. PDDs should be predominately operated on
16 sidewalks and within marked and unmarked crosswalks at
17 intersections. If a sidewalk is not present or if
18 operating a PDD would constitute a hazard, only then should
19 PDDs be permitted to operate on the shoulder or berm of a
20 trafficway.
21 PennDOT and local authorities should have the
22 ability to temporarily restrict operations due to
23 operational or safety reasons, including but not limited to
24 emergency conditions. This is consistent with the
25 legislation within the language of Act 117. 12
1 PennDOT supports the requirements that a business
2 entity should submit an operations plan for PennDOT review.
3 This oversight authority will allow PennDOT to ensure every
4 effort is made to address any public safety and operational
5 concerns, while being flexible enough to adjust for changes
6 and advancements in the technology. However, the plan
7 should include, but not be limited to information on the
8 business entity, a description of the training the agent
9 receives, a list of the jurisdictions in which the PDD will
10 be operated in, a description of the identifiable marker
11 and a list of any devices that an ID will be on, proof of
12 adequate insurance, a description of the PDDs' operational
13 domain design -- this is the operating parameters and
14 limitations of the device -- a description of how an
15 emergency service responder may stop and/or disable the
16 PDD, a description of the types of cargo or goods the PDD
17 will be transporting, and details on the PDD including
18 weight, dimensions, engine type, and intended speed of
19 travel.
20 Business entities should be required to report
21 incidents resulting in personal injury or property damage.
22 PennDOT supports the requirement for an agent to be within
23 30 feet of the PDD but believes it may be overly
24 restrictive to have this requirement in place until 2022.
25 PennDOT and local authorities should have the ability to 13
1 allow for remote operations prior to 2022 if the business
2 entity can demonstrate the ability to safely operate.
3 However, PennDOT and local authorities should have the
4 authority to reinstate the 30-foot requirement if a safety
5 concern arises prior to 2022.
6 Finally, PDDs' operational requirements should be
7 based around their operational design domain. For example,
8 if a business entity plans for their PDD to operate on the
9 shoulder of a roadway in Pittsburgh at speeds of 25 mph,
10 the braking system should be able to bring the PDD to a
11 controlled stop on an incline not just a flat, level
12 surface.
13 PDDs come in all shapes and sizes from Starship's
14 six-wheeled, 55-pound delivery robot to Refraction AI's
15 three-wheeled, 80-pound logistics vehicle, to FedEx's Roxo.
16 Some PDDs travel at a speed comparable to a leisurely walk,
17 while others travel at speeds up to 25 mph. With such
18 diversity in PDDs, PennDOT encourages the Committee and the
19 General assembly to provide PennDOT and local authorities
20 with as much flexibility and oversight as possible. This
21 will allow for the safe deployment of PDDs while allowing
22 for the Commonwealth to continue to be a hub for innovation
23 and automation.
24 Thank you for the opportunity to discuss Senate
25 bill 1199. We at PennDOT appreciate the legislature's 14
1 proactive approach in ensuring that public safety is a top
2 priority. And I ’m happy to answer any questions later on.
3 Thank you.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Thank you, Mark.
5 Since you are our only testifier, I have a couple of
6 questions, and I ’ll kickoff the questioning if I can.
7 How long has your office existed within PennDOT?
8 You know, an Office of Transformational Technology sounds
9 very futuristic. I ’m just wondering how long you guys have
10 been working there as a think tank within PennDOT to plan
11 for this kind of thing.
12 MR. KOPKO: Sure. My office will be a year in
13 August. It was created as a way to bring and elevate up
14 these emerging transportation technologies to a higher
15 level so that it’s not within a specific [inaudible]
16 looking at areas that are crosscutting across multiple
17 [inaudible], so automated vehicles is a perfect example,
18 not only our operator and driver and vehicle services but
19 planning, it hits our Highway Administration, it hits our
20 multimodal. So it’s our job to look at this technology
21 that’s coming towards us in the future, you know, 5 to 10
22 to 15 years out. Knowing that everyone is busy with their
23 day-to-day but not wanting to lose sight of the future,
24 it’s the [inaudible] responsibility to keep a finger on the
25 pulse of what transportation is moving towards and what’s 15
1 in emerging technology so we can work with the existing
2 business areas within the Department and integrate it in
3 processes when it makes sense. But in the meantime,
4 [inaudible] that subject matter expert and help guides the
5 direction of the Department.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. And how many
7 people are within your department or your -
8 MR. KOPKO: We have a —
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: — division?
10 MR. KOPKO: We have a complement of four,
11 including myself. We are filling positions right now.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Thank you.
13 Let me take this opportunity to indicate that
14 Representative Greg Rothman from Cumberland County, who's
15 joined us virtually. Representative Lori Mizgorski from
16 Allegheny County, and Representative Steve Kinsey from
17 Philadelphia County are all on the line.
18 Mark, I think you had indicated there was a
19 number of States across the country that have already
20 authorized robotic devices. Can you tell us, are all of
21 them in pilot projects or are some already authorized
22 across the board? And did they all start out with having
23 this sort of a human chaperone that's called for in the
24 Senate bill that, you know, would be within 30 feet of them
25 essentially for an 18-month period of time, until the 16
1 beginning of 2022?
2 MR. KOPKO: Sure. No, it varies across the
3 board. We tend to see pilot programs a lot of times happen
4 when it happens at the local level, you know, Washington,
5 D.C., San Francisco, and those are perfect examples where
6 they try to ease into it. Some of the States that have
7 passed legislation try to do an all-encompassing that just
8 opens it up. There are some that have as part of it a
9 period where you actually have a chaperone or an agent
10 nearby, and then there's others where it just allows for
11 complete remote operations. But it seems consistent across
12 the board that there is a requirement that someone is
13 monitoring the vehicle at all times and able to take over
14 control when necessary, so a teleoperations type of
15 ability.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. That’s
17 ultimately what’s going to happen. There’s always going to
18 be somebody monitoring from a remote distance.
19 MR. KOPKO: Correct.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: What I ’m interested
21 in, how many of the States that have authorized these have
22 done this where the person having control of the iBot is
23 within 30 feet and for what period of time?
24 MR. KOPKO: So I ’m only familiar with it through
25 a pilot program. I believe San Francisco had to have a 17
1 chaperone by the vehicle, and it was a phased-out period
2 just like what is proposed within the bill. But I would
3 have to go back and follow up with you to get the specifics
4 on how long that period actually was.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Well, thank
6 you. I ’m going to call on Chairman Carroll for a question.
7 Then I ’ll go to Representative Rothman.
8 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: What would be
9 PennDOT’s primary concern with the language in the bill as
10 written?
11 MR. KOPKO: Sure. So, as I mentioned, there’s
12 some safety concerns that we have, not incident reporting
13 is one of those. We believe as it’s written right now
14 Section 3746 regarding reporting of incidents, it wouldn’t
15 be applicable. We would want to know what happens at all
16 times with these vehicles or with these devices. We think
17 ideally, as I mentioned before, that they should
18 predominantly operate on sidewalks, and if there’s some
19 sort of hazard of if there’s no sidewalk present, that’s
20 when you go to a shoulder or a berm. You know, we think
21 that the braking system requirement within the bill is not
22 stringent enough. We think that it’s based around ideal
23 conditions. And a lot of the requirements of the vehicle
24 should be based around its operational design domain, so
25 this is where the vehicle is designed to function and what 18
1 conditions it is. So if it is intended to operate on
2 inclined surfaces, it should be able to brake on inclined
3 surfaces.
4 We think that the way the bill is at least from
5 [inaudible], we believe that there are some unintended
6 operational abilities within it, specifically on -- it
7 would be [inaudible] areas of operations, subpart 3, on a
8 local roadway under the jurisdiction of a local authority
9 with a posted speed limit of no greater than 25 miles per
10 hour.
11 So within the bill within subpart D, part 2, that
12 relates to the Department and says that it can operate on
13 the shoulder and the berms, but it just says local
14 roadways. It doesn't cull out shoulders and berms. And
15 based off of the definition of a PDD saying that it can
16 operate -- it's manufactured for transporting cargo and
17 goes in pedestrian areas [inaudible] berm because it calls
18 out traffic ways. And in the local government area it says
19 on local roadways. We believe it gives the ability for it
20 to actually operate within the lane of travel, which is not
21 what we would want within the Department. We think these
22 should be limited solely to pedestrian, to the shoulder or
23 the berm, but the way it is written right now for local
24 roadways in Senate Bill 1199, we believe it gives
25 flexibility for it actually operate within the travel lane. 19
1 We have some concerns about the way the language
2 is written regarding hazardous materials. Our
3 recommendation is that a personal delivery device may not
4 transport hazardous materials of the type or amount that
5 would require a vehicle to be placarded in accordance with
6 the Department’s regulation. We feel like that might be a
7 better approach versus the way the language is right now,
8 and it almost implies that as long as it’s placarded, it
9 could potentially carry hazardous materials.
10 We think that there’s some restrictions on local
11 authorities under PennDOT that we would like to see, so I
12 mentioned before about temporary restrictions, so a perfect
13 example of this would be instead of prohibiting the
14 operations on a specific roadway, it might be on a case-to-
15 case [inaudible] scenario. So a major winter storm is
16 hitting the Commonwealth. You might want to prohibit the
17 use of these devices for a set period of time so that you
18 can allow for winter operations to occur. You can make
19 sure that sidewalks are clear before they’re resuming.
20 So we don’t want to necessarily go out and
21 prohibit operations on that roadway altogether and post it
22 within the bulletin, as required within the bill, but more
23 for a temporary period where it makes sense from a safety
24 standpoint and where we would hope that the business
25 entities would not want to be operating anyway during this 20
1 time, to temporarily restrict and when the conditions are
2 alleviated, then resume. So having that type of ability
3 would definitely be beneficial.
4 Also, with regards to PennDOT, we have the
5 ability to [inaudible] on specific roadways without
6 consultation with the business entity. On the local side,
7 they cannot prohibit on a specific roadway or pedestrian
8 area without consulting the business entity to make sure
9 that there's a hazard that would require that.
10 It makes sense from the Department with regards
11 to pedestrian areas where you would have to have
12 consultation, but from a roadway standpoint, we feel that
13 that should be up to the respective infrastructure owner-
14 operators, whether it be what it is right now for the
15 Department to have that ability or for the local authority
16 to have that ability without necessarily consultation.
17 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Thank you.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Any other
19 questions? Okay. Representative Greg Rothman. I'm sorry,
20 Representative Greg Rothman -
21 REPRESENTATIVE ROTHMAN: Yes.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: -- Greg, if you're
23 there, just take -
24 REPRESENTATIVE ROTHMAN: Mr. Chairman, thank you.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: There you are. 21
1 REPRESENTATIVE ROTHMAN: Chairman Hennessey,
2 Chairman Carroll, thank you. And I ’m excited that w e ’re
3 talking about new technology. Literally through new
4 technology and also a new technology that, because of
5 COVID-19 and the pandemic has [inaudible] opportunities to
6 deliver touchless products to our citizens.
7 The sidewalk delivery systems, which is really
8 what w e ’re talking about or the personal delivery devices,
9 I have a few questions about the bill. And I ’m not sure -
10 I have the Senate version. I don’t have Representative
11 Schroeder’s House version, but if she’s still there, maybe
12 she can address this.
13 But my question is to Mr. Kopko, and thank you
14 for your testimony and thank you for what your office is
15 doing. I think this is very exciting, like we did with
16 autonomous vehicle advancements and platooning, and we have
17 many more advancements on the way. So this is very
18 exciting times for Pennsylvania.
19 But I ’m a little concerned about a section in the
20 bill that calls for -- and you did address in your
21 testimony -- a business plan approval. And I just have
22 some concerns about it. Pennsylvania has done very well in
23 attracting top-tier tech startups and investment in high
24 tech in Pennsylvania because w e ’ve taken the approach that
25 businesses do not have to come to the government to get 22
1 their plans approved. And innovation that requires
2 government approval I believe is in some ways impossible.
3 And so I ’d like to make sure that w e ’re not creating a
4 barrier to innovation. And there are also secondary issues
5 of whether those would be protected from right-to-know
6 requests from competition, seeing what other businesses are
7 doing.
8 And the bill states that the PDDs are to be
9 regulated as pedestrians and not as motor vehicles, and I
10 do appreciate that. And perhaps my colleague from
11 Philadelphia, Chairman Kinsey, may have some questions
12 about our scooter bill, but I ’ll stick to the definition of
13 PDD, which is says to have an automated driving system,
14 which is a technical term used for highly automated
15 vehicles. Is there going to be a separate -- there are
16 separate sections in the Vehicle Code for pedestrians and
17 highly automated vehicles, but are we focusing on more the
18 fact because PDDs can weigh up to 550 pounds or because
19 there’s other confusion going on with the highly automated
20 vehicles.
21 So, I guess, Mark, if you could talk about the
22 business plan requirement and what you envision an entity
23 that wants to do the PDDs, will they have to have -- what
24 will have to be in the business plan? You mentioned -- I
25 think your exact words were "not limited to,” so I just 23
1 want to make sure that they're not required to have any
2 trade secrets or, you know, the technology they're using,
3 so if you could just address that.
4 And I think, Mr. Chairman, I just think I made my
5 point that we should be doing all we can to create high-
6 tech opportunities. But I'll wait for the answer to that.
7 And thank you for allowing me to ask the questions.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You're welcome,
9 Greg. Go ahead, Mark. Do you want to answer the -
10 MR. KOPKO: With regard to the business plan,
11 it's a sense in the Department that we always try to avoid
12 anything relating to anything confidential or trade
13 secrets. We have a pretty outstanding reputation within
14 the industry right now. I feel between our PennDOT's
15 automated vehicle testing guidance where we require a
16 notice of testing and a corresponding safety and risk
17 mitigation plan to be submitted to receive authorization
18 from the Department, which is a voluntary process, but we
19 have 100 percent compliance within the State. We have all
20 the testers. We work hand-in-hand with them.
21 Through, Representative Rothman, your bill on
22 platooning, we have a plan requirement within that where we
23 have one authorized platooning entity [inaudible] process
24 once again. We try to avoid anything related to
25 proprietary trade secrets for multiple reasons. One, we 24
1 understand the concern from a business entity. Two, once
2 you start to get into that, it starts to get more into the
3 technical side, which is not the expertise of PennDOT or,
4 arguably, any DOT. It’s something more at the Federal
5 level where they tend to deal with.
6 What we tend to focus on is more of [inaudible].
7 We look at the safety of the operations through the
8 training and the safety culture that you have in place and
9 then just have a basic understanding of what’s occurring.
10 So the information that I mentioned within the proposal we
11 don’t think we dive into anything remotely trade secret.
12 Even something that might be close to it on an operational
13 design domain where it can function and in what conditions.
14 You can still provide that high-level [inaudible]
15 requirements. There’s recommendations coming out of groups
16 like the Society of Automotive Engineers, SAE, that they
17 have some working groups that came out with some
18 recommendations on what should go into an operational
19 design domain.
20 We already ask that within our AE testing
21 guidance. It doesn’t necessarily dive down into the
22 technical or tell us how’s your -- you know, how many
23 sensors do you have, what sensors, how does the software
24 stack work or anything along those lines. It’s just more
25 of how do you -- you know, tell us how this vehicle or this 25
1 device is going to function safety, and tell us what steps
2 you've put in place to ensure that. And then tie in some
3 additional information just to let us know what type of
4 operations that's going to occur and things like how should
5 a first responder react if there is an incident and they
6 have to disable to device.
7 We absolutely do not want to get anything
8 proprietary or trade secret. I think we have a pretty
9 proven track record of that with what we currently do with
10 other automated vehicle type of applications within the
11 Commonwealth, and I'm hoping that would hopefully assure
12 industry that we're not going down that path by any means.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Thank you.
14 Representative Rothman, do you have any other questions?
15 REPRESENTATIVE ROTHMAN: I don't. Thank you.
16 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You're welcome.
18 Representative Innamorato, we'll get to your question in
19 just a second. I just want to mention that Representative
20 Ed Neilson from Philadelphia has joined us virtually on
21 this call in this hearing.
22 With that, Representative Innamorato?
23 REPRESENTATIVE INNAMORATO: Great. Thank you so
24 much, Chairman.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You're welcome. 26
1 REPRESENTATIVE INNAMORATO: So my question is
2 around individuals with disabilities. We have these PDD
3 devices on the University of Pittsburgh’s campus last year,
4 and actually, they stopped using them because these devices
5 were put onto sidewalks, and they inhibited the mobility of
6 low-vision individuals and individuals who use wheelchairs
7 and other vulnerable sidewalk users. So I ’m wondering if
8 you can speak to what kind of consideration are baked into
9 this bill that would help address the needs of people with
10 mobility or vision issues that can be in compliance with
11 helping make a safe space for individuals with disabilities
12 and then kind of speak to any sort of consultation that is
13 required from these folks or groups that work with these
14 individuals in permitting these on public sidewalks and
15 rights-of-way.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Mark, before you
17 answer that, are you familiar with this situation, the
18 experience in the University of Pittsburgh, and if not,
19 I ’ll ask Sara if she could just give us a little more
20 detail about -
21 MR. KOPKO: I am familiar.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You are? Okay.
23 Well, go ahead. Thank you.
24 MR. KOPKO: Yes. Yes. So I believe the
25 situation you’re referring to is the incident with 27
1 Starship. One of their devices impeded an ADA ramp, and
2 then the city requested that they, you know, prohibit
3 operations to address that. So from the Department’s
4 standpoint, the business plan is where we would probably
5 ask a question like that. So w e ’re currently updating our
6 AD testing guidance right now, and w e ’ve added in language
7 about interaction with [inaudible] users. And we would
8 consider that type of language also to be part of that
9 plan. It’s something that the Department, along with
10 consultation with the local authorities, would like to
11 review is how do you ensure that you don’t impede anyone
12 with any type of disability or you keep open ADA ramps or
13 anything type of accessible infrastructure.
14 So that would be a question there. It wouldn’t
15 necessarily get into the proprietary information that
16 Representative Rothman was concerned about. It’s more
17 talking about how their basic operations would work. So it
18 could be just, you know, a simplistic explanation but just
19 give us an idea of how have you taken steps to make sure
20 that that doesn’t impact any of those users.
21 With regarding the groups, associations, or
22 advocacy groups, we feel that once we have these
23 consultations with the local authorities, a lot of times
24 the local authorities have the better relationships with
25 those more localized groups, and that’s where we would hope 28
1 for the locals to bring those into the conversation or at
2 least consult with them as we, in partnership, review any
3 type of business plan that comes into the Department for
4 review to make sure that the answers that are given are
5 satisfactory and make sure that we don't have any type of
6 incidents like you had with the Starship device in 2019.
7 REPRESENTATIVE INNAMORATO: Okay. Great. Thank
8 you.
9 MR. KOPKO: Um-hum.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Mark, I'm sorry,
11 what was the name of this device that you -- I couldn't
12 catch it when you were giving a name to it.
13 MR. KOPKO: Sure. The company's name is
14 Starship. They make a -
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Starship, S-t -
16 MR. KOPKO: -- device that it's essentially a -
17 it looks like a cooler basically on six wheels. It's about
18 50 pounds, and, you know, it's a sidewalk delivery device.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Okay. Do
20 you have any questions? Okay. Thank you very much for
21 your testimony, Mark. I don't see any other questions for
22 right now, so you're off the hook temporarily. You're
23 welcome to stay involved in the call and listen to the
24 other testifiers, but, having said that, I will move to the
25 Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania. We're about to hear 29
1 from Sam Marshall, who’s the President of that
2 organization. And if anybody’s going to give thought to
3 what the possible problems might be in this kind of
4 situation, w e ’d expect it to be the insurance industry.
5 And having read your testimony last night, you raise some
6 interesting questions, and w e ’re all about to hear them.
7 So make yourself comfortable there, Sam, and begin whenever
8 you’re ready. Thanks for being here.
9 MR. MARSHALL: Thanks for having me. And
10 realizing that -- I’m sure everybody read my testimony last
11 night or this morning, I won’t just recite it here, but
12 before coming over, my colleague Noah Karn shared with me a
13 commercial on PDDs from FedEx. And it showed all the
14 virtues of a PDD. You know, it’s a nice, you know, riding
15 along the sidewalk, stopped for a dog, stopped for a
16 basketball, navigated its way around a pothole, and
17 delivered medicine climbing up the steps to a mother in
18 need of medicine for her child and then left. It showed
19 exactly why this is an innovative technology that promises
20 a lot of benefits.
21 Now, it raised a lot of questions because, of
22 course, when it left, it was on the sidewalk. The sidewalk
23 wasn’t big enough for anybody but that. You know, that
24 sort of goes to the concern that was just raised. You
25 know, how do you balance that with the need of somebody on 30
1 a wheelchair on a sidewalk? You know, it showed some of
2 the questions that I'll go through, and that's the balance
3 of what you have to deal with. How do you allow and
4 promote this type of a technology, which is a gamechanger
5 and a good gamechanger, but how do you make sure that this
6 innovation can operate safely and in integration with all
7 of the others who use the existing infrastructure, whether
8 it be sidewalks, sides of the roads, bike lanes, whatever
9 you may have.
10 And that goes to a couple of questions that I
11 think need to be addressed, you know, need to be answered
12 and addressed in the legislation. And the first is a state
13 of readiness for PDDs, whether they are operated by
14 somebody within 18 feet or, you know, I think it's 30 feet
15 in this bill, or they're operated remotely. And,
16 appreciating Representative Schroeder's remark, there's a
17 difference between remote operation and autonomous
18 operation, and that's a question that I have because the
19 terms have been used interchangeably here when describing
20 it, but, you know, speaking as a lawyer, they're very
21 different.
22 You know, and those are -- you know, I think you
23 have to separate, you know, the two areas. If you're going
24 to talk about operating with the operator within 30 feet
25 and allowing that to go forward right now, okay, you can 31
1 see if the technology is there. I don’t know, 30 feet,
2 does that mean within eyeshot? The speed you’re talking
3 about, you know, you’re not going to be -- you know, these
4 things are going 12 miles an hour on a sidewalk and 20
5 miles an hour, 25 miles an hour on a roadway. I don’t know
6 how you stay within 30 feet of that. You know, if you’re
7 moving at 12 miles an hour on the sidewalk, you’re the
8 fastest person on the sidewalk this month. You know, so
9 somehow that’s a question that you want to have. How do
10 you envision these things being operated right now if you
11 were to pass the bill today and that took effect right
12 away?
13 You know, then, you know, next, we talk about
14 them being able to be operated remotely. Somebody’s in
15 control. And you’re talking about that within less than 18
16 months. W e ’re nowhere close to having autonomous vehicles
17 ready to operate on our roads because they don’t
18 necessarily recognize the difference between a dog, a
19 basketball, and a kid. They’re not able to make a -- you
20 know, I mean, ask anybody in the autonomous vehicle field,
21 and they’ll tell you the hardest thing you can ever do is
22 figure out how to make a left-hand turn in traffic.
23 They’re not there. They’re not going to be there for a
24 while, so how is a PDD able to do what an autonomous
25 vehicle isn’t? So that’s a question of are they really 32
1 ready to share the sidewalks and the roadways with
2 pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, you know, the disabled,
3 you know, the people who use our sidewalks and roadways?
4 You know, there are questions in the bill. You
5 know, the bill says, okay, you know, the PDDs yield and
6 refrain from unreasonably interfering with pedestrians.
7 Not exactly sure what that means, but I ’m also not sure how
8 you yell stop to a remotely operated PDD. It’s a machine.
9 Stop. You know, I ’m not sure who hears that. I ’m not sure
10 who obeys that. I ’m not sure how you accommodate that.
11 You know, those are the types of questions.
12 And I ’d say, you know, if you want to have good
13 regulation -- and that’s what w e ’re talking about here, how
14 to regulate a good and new technology operating on an
15 existing infrastructure, first, you have to know the
16 technology that you’re regulating. And I don’t know that
17 everybody understands all the mechanics of PDDs, who’s
18 making them. I mean, I appreciate FedEx’s, you know,
19 commercials and its innovations but there are a lot of
20 other makers of PDDs. Just where is the technology? Who’s
21 going to be looking at that.
22 You know, and I think in addition to knowing the
23 product, you also have to know the infrastructure on which
24 they’re going to operate. How many sidewalks are really
25 capable of accommodating this? You know, how does that all 33
1 work? And that goes to really the next area of
2 questioning, and, you know, Mark, the predecessor, Mark
3 Kopko, who came just before me, raised it, and I know
4 you’ve had some others comment on it, and that’s the
5 balance between State and local authorities. You know,
6 particularly if these are envisioned as being primarily on
7 sidewalks somewhat surprised me, you know, but that’s
8 really for a local community’s concern. It’s the one who
9 knows the sidewalks.
10 You know, you have a balance here. And I think
11 the bill correctly recognizes that you need both State and
12 local. I think it’s important for PennDOT and I think some
13 of the improvements in terms of the standards that PennDOT
14 mentioned, outlined, I think those are important things to
15 fold into the bill. A plan of operation, it’s not really a
16 business plan but it’s a plan of operation, is an important
17 thing to have. It’s just what’s in it. I ’m not sure what
18 everybody envisions. I think that’s something that PennDOT
19 should set forth. It might require a regulation. It might
20 require a statement of policy.
21 You know, I ’m not sure you can spell out all the
22 details that you would want in a statute because the
23 technology is evolving. Whatever it is now, it’s going to
24 be different two years from now. It’s just the way -- you
25 know, that’s the good thing about technology. It improves. 34
1 But I think you also need to have -- and I think
2 you need to better recognize than the bill does -- the
3 involvement of localities. You know, we talked about it in
4 terms of sidewalks, are they wide enough to accommodate
5 these and share them with -- you know, whether it's
6 disabled or, you know, families with, you know, kids in
7 strollers, you know, people on bikes, people walking dogs.
8 But there's also, you know, just take a look around your
9 own communities.
10 One of the things with this COVID -- and we've
11 talked about the need to limit human interaction as a
12 possible positive of this. By the time these are fully
13 operational, I hope we have a vaccine. I mean, you know,
14 I'm not sure they're -- you know, they didn't come about
15 because of COVID, and I don't know that they're that much
16 more enhanced. But even given that, one of the things
17 you've seen with the COVID crisis is for businesses to
18 operate, there's a lot of sidewalk dining. You know, walk
19 down 2nd Street here in Harrisburg, walk down in your own
20 communities, there's a lot of sidewalk dining. I'm not
21 sure how PDDs interact in a sidewalk scenario where people
22 are browsing, people are doing sidewalk driving, you know,
23 particularly if they're remotely done.
24 And the bill talks about remotely done by
25 somebody licensed in a State somewhere in the country. You 35
1 know, I'm not sure that means, gee, you know what, does
2 that mean one person per PDD and he's watching it on a
3 computer screen in Arizona and he's going to accommodate
4 diners on 2nd Street at 11 o'clock at night? I don't know
5 how that works. That's a question of what you envision
6 doing.
7 And I don't know, you know, it's a question of
8 readiness. You know, I was fascinated that PennDOT said,
9 boy, maybe we want to move it up so you can operate
10 remotely even before 18 months from now. I know we don't
11 have highly autonomous vehicles anywhere near ready. I'm
12 sort of surprised because PDDs are essentially autonomous
13 vehicles. They just don't have a person. They have goods
14 in them, but, you know, it's the same theory if they're
15 really autonomous. I don't know that they're fully ready
16 to roll.
17 I'd also note the bill's a bit conflicted in
18 terms of the role of the locality. You know, it does say
19 that a, you know, locality can set up standards but it has
20 to consult with a PDD first. There are a lot of PDDs out
21 there. Does it have to consult with every manufacturer?
22 What does it have to do? But then it also says that
23 whatever the locality does, it can't regulate PDDs on
24 sidewalks in ways inconsistent with the bill, and it
25 expressly says you can't limit the areas or hours of 36
1 operation.
2 I think that’s exactly what a locality is going
3 to want to do. If you’re encouraging sidewalk dining, if
4 you’re worried about rush hours, I don’t know that you want
5 550-pound -- and that’s before you put anything in them -
6 but I don’t know that you want 550-pound structures running
7 at 12 miles an hour, which, you know, just speaking as a
8 pedestrian, it’s about three or four times the pace that
9 you walk. I ’m not sure you want them riding on sidewalks.
10 You know, a locality may say, you know what,
11 that’s not what w e ’re trying to do. You know, there are a
12 lot of communities -- I ’m from the Philadelphia area. In
13 Philadelphia w e ’ve done a great deal to encourage
14 pedestrian use. It’s a big part of our economic
15 development there. You know, you need to make sure that
16 the locality has a role in saying, you know what, we want
17 to integrate these in with our pedestrians, in with our
18 motorists. You know, we have a limited infrastructure in
19 most communities, and how do you make sure of that?
20 The third question, the last one I ’d have is on
21 accountability. I think I ’d agree with PennDOT that you
22 want to know if there are any incidents. I also would
23 suggest that if you’re going to go to autonomous or you’re
24 going to go to remote-control, you want to know how many
25 times did somebody have to override a computer control. 37
1 You know, I mean, what is -- you know, that’s knowing the
2 technology that you have. How many times -- I mean, you
3 know, when you talk about insurance, you know, I mean, it
4 talks about here -- I do think in terms of ongoing
5 accountability you do need to have some role of
6 enforcement.
7 You know, I don’t understand how -- you know, I
8 mean, I don’t know how a pedestrian who would say, here,
9 excuse me, PDD, please stop. I ’m trying to walk here, and,
10 you know, I ’ve got kids in a stroller, I ’m in a wheelchair,
11 whatever. You know, I don’t know how you interact with a
12 PDD. I don’t know how a police officer says, whoa, you’re
13 going too fast. I don’t know how that interaction takes
14 place. I ’m sure it does. I ’m sure there’s a way for it to
15 happen, but that’s something that, as a Committee, before
16 you pass enabling legislation, I think you want to know
17 that just out of curiosity, as well as safeguarding
18 constituents and consumers.
19 I do think part of accountability -- and, you
20 know, I ’m an insurance guy, so, you know, I ’m going to
21 mention this, but part of accountability is insurance. I
22 would put the onus of insurance -- and I think the
23 insurance requirement -- I appreciate the fact that it’s
24 there -- don’t let it be squabbling between whoever owns
25 the entity that owns the PDD and whatever agent is 38
1 operating the PDD. They shouldn’t be haggling it out as to
2 who is responsible in a given accident because that’s not
3 fair to the person who got hurt, you know, somebody gets
4 clipped by a PDD. Let them argue that out on their own,
5 but have the owner of the PDD responsible for the PDD.
6 It’s the way it works in -- I mean, it’s the way it
7 works -- I mean, taxis. You know, the taxi has the
8 insurance. It may hassle with the driver later on, but as
9 to the third-party claimant, it’s the business entity who’s
10 responsible.
11 I will acknowledge -- and I think Chairman
12 Hennessey made reference to it -- I know that anytime w e ’re
13 talking about a new form of transportation and we get
14 invited to testify, we always sound like somebody’s
15 grandparent. You know, we can’t understand these new
16 fangled things -
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: We all like our
18 grandparents. They’re liked.
19 MR. MARSHALL: We all love our grandparents, but
20 there’s a time and a place. And, you know, we always come
21 across as the outfit that’s impeding new technology,
22 impeding innovation. You know, I don’t think that’s fair
23 to us. I know it’s not true. I mean, in fact, we embrace
24 new technologies. And we do it in particular in
25 transportation. We try to do it with transportation safety 39
1 measures. I mean, you know, you heard us talk about cell
2 phone usage, and there are means to limit that. I mean,
3 frankly, we wish there was more concern about technology
4 that makes things safer, not just faster or not just a new
5 business opportunity.
6 I would say that to the extent we do come across
7 as very safety-oriented, it's true. We make no apologies
8 for that. You know, and I think that as you bring in these
9 new technologies, whether they be PDDs, whether they be
10 electronic-assisted bikes that'll be the subject of
11 tomorrow's, you know, hearing, whether they be scooters
12 that, you know, Representative Rothman had reference to, we
13 don't have any philosophical argument with them. What we
14 do say is make sure that there's oversight of them because
15 the challenge is you have an infrastructure that wasn't
16 designed for them, didn't envision them. How do you make
17 sure that works?
18 And we would note, you know, anybody who knows
19 the business of insurance, we're pretty heavily regulated
20 ourselves. So a lot of the times when we come up here and
21 we talk about safety concerns, we talk about it in the
22 context of this is what we're asked. This is what you ask
23 of us. We don't shirk from that. We accept that. That's
24 our responsibility. It comes at a cost, but it's a fair
25 cost to protect consumers. And I think that's what we're 40
1 talking about here. We're not against PDDs. We see the
2 role. We see the value. I mean, it's still evolving. But
3 I do think that you want to make sure that as they're going
4 to come onto our roads and our sidewalks at speeds that are
5 pretty fast, you want to make sure that it's done safely
6 and responsibly. And our suggestions have been in that
7 vein. Thank you.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: And thank you, Sam.
9 Really I do appreciate the thought processes that are
10 involved in the formulation of questions. That's why we
11 ask you to review them and invite you to testify, the
12 Insurance Federation, you in particular, but the Insurance
13 Federation in general.
14 It would seem to me that you've raised a lot of
15 important questions. Some of those, however, might have
16 been answered or might at least have been to some extent
17 answered by other States and the Insurance Federations,
18 your counterparts, in other States. I'm wondering like if
19 you go to conventions or if you have -- are there papers
20 that circulate within the insurance industry that say this
21 is what has been the experience in Arizona and in
22 California and in Ohio. We've heard that they all have
23 these kind of devices authorized, and I'm just wondering
24 if, you know -
25 MR. MARSHALL: I'm not a — 41
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: It’s all new, I
2 know.
3 MR. MARSHALL: I ’m not a convention kind of guy,
4 but if I did go to conventions, I would raise this. It’s
5 still a bit new and frankly, you know, as an industry w e ’re
6 probably catching up a bit. You know, in some States and
7 in some localities, you know, some would say 3 miles an
8 hour. that’s a lot slower than -- it’s 25 percent of 21
9 miles an hour. you know, some of them might -- I think
10 everybody’s still coming to grips with it. You know, I
11 don’t know that the remote -- and, you know, the remote
12 ones are fully operational, you know, to the extent that
13 they’re out there. You know, I think -
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You think there
15 might be pilot programs yet?
16 MR. MARSHALL: And, you know, they’re pilot
17 programs and the like, you know, but I think -- and w e ’re
18 gathering information. Not that many States where they
19 have them. You know, I mean, we have 50 States, so if
20 somebody says, hey, these exist in 12 States already, there
21 are 38 States where they don’t have them. You know, I
22 mean, w e ’re all -- this is the very beginning of it, and
23 it’s a new field. I think FedEx is clearly one of the
24 leaders and I think one of the more responsible ones in
25 terms of the innovations. It’s a matter of -- but from our 42
1 perspective, whether it’s -- you know, with something like
2 this, it’s a matter of accountability, and it’s a matter of
3 knowing how ready they are within our infrastructures, our
4 local infrastructures.
5 You know, the bill talks about being able to stop
6 on a clean, level, flat surface, you know, dry surface.
7 Okay. That’s great in Arizona, not so great in Pittsburgh.
8 You know, these things -- you know, you’re going to want to
9 use them on a cold, rainy, snowy day. That’s when you
10 really don’t want to go down to the store and pick
11 something up. You can say, here, you know, let the FedEx,
12 you know, robot take it to my home. Okay. But that may
13 not be when a sidewalk is quite ready to be traversed.
14 That may not be but the roadway is.
15 It’s a matter of having a better feel for the
16 technology. If somebody tells me that in January, you
17 know, in less than 18 months, less than a year and a half
18 from now that w e ’re ready to have as many of these as the
19 marketplace wants on our sidewalks, you know, operating
20 remotely or autonomously, whichever one it is, you know, I
21 think we need to learn a lot more. I don’t know that
22 there’s a rush to do that. Those are questions that I
23 think the Committee needs to wrestle with.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. We have a
25 question from Representative Aaron Kaufer, and then w e ’ll 43
1 go to Representative Schroeder after him.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFER: Thank you. Thank you,
3 Mr. Marshall. Thanks for being here, much appreciated.
4 Yes, I think Chairman Hennessey asked the first
5 question I had of if you were hearing about any accidents
6 that were happening in other States where this was
7 regulated, if it has become a major concern or anything
8 from the conventions like he mentioned. Is this something
9 that you're hearing a lot on the national level of -
10 MR. MARSHALL: No, not yet, and I think that
11 reflects -- I mean, it's still -
12 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFER: Right. It's a new —
13 MR. MARSHALL: It's still very fledgling. I
14 mean, you know, where you get concerned is if all of a
15 sudden -- I mean, if in two years, you know, every evening
16 on 2nd Street in Harrisburg you got, you know, 50 of these
17 things bobbing up and down 2nd Street, you know, bringing
18 pizza or dinner or cocktails or whatever, all, you know, by
19 10 different companies because the city of Harrisburg had
20 no way of regulating them, no way of controlling the
21 numbers, no way of controlling the businesses. You know,
22 we're not there yet. I mean, you know, I think -- you
23 know, these aren't cheap. You know, they're new, the
24 technology is new. We're a little bit a ways before this
25 is a cost-effective way of saying here's your pizza, Sam. 44
1 I mean, it's -- you know, but that'll happen. If done
2 responsibly, that will be a good thing.
3 But, again, it goes to the localities. I mean,
4 you can look here. We have some sidewalks that, you know,
5 are pretty wide and expansive and maybe can handle it, not
6 at all hours but at certain hours and certain sidewalks.
7 We have others that, you know, frankly, they're not all
8 that great for pedestrians, you know, so, you know, you
9 need to do that.
10 I think those are questions that we have in terms
11 of the technology here -
12 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFER: Yes —
13 MR. MARSHALL: -- still evolving.
14 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFER: — and I think you're
15 hitting a point that I was going to ask as well was, you
16 know, obviously, this is a growing technology. I would
17 expect to see more and more of this, as you were saying.
18 And I wasn't sure if you could explain to me, you know, I
19 know in the bill -- and I think even Representative Rothman
20 commented that these would be treated as pedestrians as
21 opposed to motor vehicles. From your perspective is there
22 a particular reason why they'd be classified one way or the
23 other, as pedestrians and not as motor vehicles according
24 to Section 102?
25 MR. MARSHALL: I mean, I would imagine that the 45
1 reason is for sidewalk usage. I mean, when we get into the
2 actual drafting -- and this is where Josiah and Meredith
3 will say, oh, God, we got to listen to Sam again. But they
4 do become problems when it’s a pedestrian because a
5 pedestrian has a -- you know, in terms of auto insurance,
6 there are liabilities and there are rights that a
7 pedestrian has that are unique. You know, to consider that
8 a pedestrian is FedEx or whoever, you know, the maker or
9 the operator of the machine is, that’s not a -- I mean, I
10 think it’s meant to be pedestrian meaning they can be on
11 sidewalks just like pedestrians. You know, the only thing
12 I ’d note is, I mean, they’re bigger, faster, and maybe less
13 responsive to human voice, you know, commands than your
14 average pedestrian. I mean, you know, none of us are going
15 12 miles an hour or 20 -
16 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFER: Well, and that makes
17 sense to me of what you’re saying is the pedestrian, for
18 the purpose of being able to be on sidewalks, not for
19 pedestrian for the purpose of insurance -
20 MR. MARSHALL: Yes.
21 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFER: — which is why I was
22 trying to comprehend that as well, so -
23 MR. MARSHALL: And there are -- within the motor
24 vehicle financial responsibility law, there are rights that
25 a pedestrian has and obligations that an auto insurer or an 46
1 insured driver owes to a pedestrian that wouldn’t
2 necessarily make sense to owe it to a PDD.
3 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFER: Right. Thank you. Thank
4 you, Chairman.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You’re welcome.
6 Chairman Carroll.
7 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Thank you, Sam.
8 Thank you so much. Can you reconcile for me -- you just
9 touched on it briefly, Chapter 17 of the Vehicle Code, the
10 5/15/30 limits that exist now, and this language of
11 $100,000 liability coverage. And not being an insurance
12 expert, what does the $100,000 -- how do I reconcile that
13 with the 5/15/30?
14 MR. MARSHALL: The 5/15/30, which is the minimum
15 that you have to have in the world of auto insurance, and
16 it’s generally the amount purchased by, you know, frankly
17 low-income Pennsylvania, you know, and that’s the balance.
18 How do you -- you know, people need to be able to drive,
19 and, you know, how much can they afford. And it’s to
20 protect third parties.
21 This is substantially more, but recognize, you
22 know, frankly, if you’re FedEx and one of your PDDs, you
23 know, God forbid, but gets into a horrendous accident,
24 you’re going to want more than $100,000 of coverage because
25 you’re going to have more than $100,000 of exposure. You 47
1 know, so the number, the amount of insurance is -- you
2 know, I mean, you -
3 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Or the use of the
4 phrase "liability coverage” versus "bodily injury” or the
5 other terms that are in Chapter 17.
6 MR. MARSHALL: Seventeen, but that’s because in
7 the world of auto insurance, there are a lot of subsets.
8 You know, there’s first-party, third-party liability,
9 property damage, medical. Here I believe this is meant to
10 refer to just general liability exposure.
11 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: So that language
12 causes you no concern then it sounds like?
13 MR. MARSHALL: No. You know, the only part that
14 causes me concern is there are parts there that talk about
15 when is it the business entity that is solely responsible?
16 You know, adverbs in statutes are always a dangerous thing
17 to begin with, but, you know, who’s responsible, the
18 business entity or the agent? I would recommend make the
19 business entity responsible. It can then hassle it out
20 with the agent. But, you know, as to the pedestrian,
21 whoever it may be, I think it makes a lot more sense that
22 the -- you know, if I get hit by one of these, I don’t want
23 to have to, you know, hassle around, particularly if the
24 agent is somebody who’s operating out of California. I
25 mean, you know, how do I -- you know, I mean, it may not 48
1 even be a registered agent in Pennsylvania. I mean, there
2 are just questions like that. You know, you shouldn't have
3 to go through that discovery process.
4 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Perfect, thank you.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Another situation
6 that comes to mind is that if I'm driving along and I hit a
7 PDD, then that propels him into someone else, you know, so
8 you have really some -- the possibilities are almost
9 endless in terms of what could go wrong. It's almost
10 amazing that, you know, in the industry, at least what
11 we've seen so far, is that those accidents don't happen
12 because people have thought it out fairly well, not
13 necessarily perfectly but pretty well.
14 MR. MARSHALL: And you know what, but I think
15 that's in part -- you know, in the world of insurance what
16 we really pay most attention to are when the numbers reach
17 a critical point. We're not at that critical point yet
18 with PDDs in terms of their experience, and that's what
19 we're saying in terms of any enabling legislation for them
20 here. You want to make sure that it's flexible enough that
21 you can adapt to what [inaudible] -
22 MALE SPEAKER: We lost sound, Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: What's that?
24 MALE SPEAKER: There you go. We finally got you
25 back. We lost you there for a while. 49
1 MR. MARSHALL: Well, you missed a really good
2 conversation.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay.
4 Representative Schroeder you had a question or some
5 questions?
6 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Yes, I just had a
7 quick question. So to get back to the insurance aspect
8 with insurance plans, do you believe that insurance
9 providers can come up with specific insurance plans for
10 this type of new technology, or are you saying that they're
11 not interested in covering new technologies?
12 MR. MARSHALL: No. I suspect a lot of my clients
13 would love nothing more than to, you know, do the insurance
14 for FedEx. We'll certainly provide that coverage. You
15 know, I mean, our concern isn't can we cover, you know, a
16 large company like FedEx. Yes, of course, and FedEx -- you
17 know, and FedEx is probably self-insured for an awful lot
18 of its liability exposure, you know, as any entity of that
19 size would be.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Sam, could you keep
21 closer to the mic, please, because -
22 MR. MARSHALL: I'm sorry. So, yes, you know,
23 we'll be able to provide that coverage. The real question
24 you have is, you know, for a claimant, whether it's a
25 pedestrian, you know, a bicyclist, or a person in a car who 50
1 gets hit by a PDD, you know, making it clear as to how they
2 proceed with their claim, you know, as between the business
3 entity whether it’s, you know, FedEx or some agent that it
4 retained. I think that’s where you want to make it clear
5 in terms of who’s responsible.
6 REPRESENTATIVE SCHROEDER: Okay. Yes, I was just
7 -- and the comments with Representative Kaufer, what you
8 answered, you know, a bunch of them bustling down the
9 street, I feel like if we had that many bustling down our
10 streets, like our economy’s looking in good shape, so I ’m
11 all about that. But thank you for your answer.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Thank you.
13 We were joined by Representative Perry Warren from Bucks
14 County virtually. Perry, unmute your computer and fire
15 away. And then w e ’ll go to Ed Neilson after him.
16 REPRESENTATIVE WARREN: So, actually -- hi, Mr.
17 Marshall. I ’m also on the Insurance Committee, so I hear
18 Mr. Marshall testify quite frequently. You pretty much
19 answered my question in his response to Chairman Carroll,
20 but it was what insurance products do you envision insuring
21 these devices, both for user and pedestrian who may be
22 injured. And you seem to revolve around auto insurance
23 policies. But would a homeowner’s policy, for example,
24 maybe come into effect if the device were to strike a
25 resident while riding up the pathway to the front door or 51
1 such? Are there other insurance products that may be drawn
2 into this industry? Thank you.
3 MR. MARSHALL: And the answer is yes. You know,
4 there would be -- you know, I mean -- you know, generally
5 when you’re talking about, for instance, homeowner policy,
6 that’s the homeowner’s liability to third parties. I ’m not
7 sure that we envision a scenario where, you know, somehow,
8 you know, the PDD, you know, is going to be damaged by the
9 homeowner as much as the other way around. But, you know,
10 I mean, that -- you know, you’ll get claims. I mean, if -
11 you know, your homeowner policy can cover you for damages
12 if you’re riding a bike. If you get clipped by a PDD, your
13 homeowner may pay and then seek recovery from a PDD. And
14 so, you know, there’d be other forms of insurance.
15 My reference to the auto end -- and
16 Representative Kaufer had raised it -- is that there are
17 times in the motor vehicle responsibility law, financial
18 responsibility law, that it refers to a pedestrian as a
19 term of art, and it’s a very specific term in terms of what
20 rights pedestrians have under auto policies and what
21 obligations auto policies have to pedestrians, and that may
22 not coincide with the rights and obligations to a PDD. And
23 that’s where you’d want to make that distinction. It’s one
24 thing to say a PDD has the same operating privileges on
25 sidewalks that a pedestrian does. It’s another thing to 52
1 say it has all the same, you know, avenues of recovery that
2 a pedestrian does.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Thank you.
4 Representative Warren, do you have any other questions?
5 REPRESENTATIVE WARREN: No. Thank you, Chairman.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Thank you.
7 Representative Ed Neilson.
8 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: Thank you, Chairman. I
9 just want to follow up on Representative Warren. So, Sam,
10 I’m just thinking of my neighborhood in particular and
11 where we are in the city and these things running bike
12 lanes and bikes swerving out to get out of the way because
13 they’re going to have the same rights -- if I ’m
14 understanding the legislation -- as a pedestrian. But I ’m
15 looking at my kids who ride down the sidewalk and somebody
16 swerves out of the way and drives up on one of the
17 neighbor’s hills and lawns and gets hurt. That kid gets
18 hurt, that’s on me, right, even though he swerved out of
19 the PDD, that puts my homeowner’s at risk? Is that what
20 I’m understanding you to say?
21 MR. MARSHALL: Yes, if the kid swerved onto your
22 property, you know, I ’m not sure the likelihood of that,
23 but, yes, that would -- your homeowner policy -- you as the
24 homeowner might be initially liable, and then you’d either
25 recover or you’d use as a defense that it was really the 53
1 PDD's fault.
2 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: Yeah, I'm just thinking
3 of like pulling the wagons down and stopping and swerving
4 out of the way to get out of the way of this because our
5 sidewalks, like you said, are all different widths. Some
6 you can walk side-by-side. Some you can't. You know, I
7 mean, it's just -- and everybody walking nowadays, I mean,
8 I live on one of those streets there's a lot of walkers,
9 and I just can't imagine one of these coming down and not
10 interrupting the community itself. Now, Philadelphia, like
11 you said, we're filled with bike lanes. And it's my
12 understanding these may or may not be able to operate in
13 bike lanes. I guess we'll get more from FedEx later when
14 they come and testify because there's a lot of questions
15 here. And I'm as concerned -- and the liability end, I
16 think you answered all those questions, yes, yes, yes.
17 Sam, I did a little investigating on concrete
18 slabs and sidewalks. They're all poured at different
19 lengths and can hold different weights. Is there any
20 concern on that, on who's liable for the destruction of
21 someone's sidewalk? I mean, if my sidewalk is only two
22 inches thick, it can only hold up to 500 pounds
23 structurally is what it says on the PSI requirements. So
24 who's going to cover the damage to that?
25 MR. MARSHALL: You know what, you've done a lot 54
1 more -
2 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: See, there's a lot of —
3 MR. MARSHALL: -- research than me. I didn't
4 know about the -
5 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: — questions here. I
6 just -
7 MR. MARSHALL: But, you know, I mean, what you
8 touch on, Representative, what you've gone to is the need
9 for the localities to be able to have a role and maybe, you
10 know, frankly, just what you're talking about, the ultimate
11 role. You know, certainly if your neighborhood has
12 sidewalks that can only handle 500 pounds, then you don't
13 want a 550-pound PDD operating on it. If your neighborhood
14 has, you know, a very narrow sidewalk, it may not want a
15 PDD operating on it. That's where it really does become a
16 local concern, and that's our -- and, you know, by the same
17 token, we would talk -- you know, bike lanes.
18 You know, I'll actually not disagree with you but
19 I'll question, I mean, I'm a Philadelphia guy. We don't
20 have that many bike lanes in Philadelphia. We have them on
21 some of the major thoroughfares, but we don't have them -
22 I mean, if you're in Center City, you have it -- two
23 Philadelphia guys. As you know, we have them on Market
24 Street, but we don't have them on any of the numbered
25 streets. So, you know, you get into a question of -- and, 55
1 you know, our bike lanes are about as wide as a PDD, so,
2 you know, that doesn’t match well with trying to get around
3 each other. You know, there’s not -
4 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: Right. Somebody’s
5 swerving -
6 MR. MARSHALL: There’s not the same
7 [inaudible] -
8 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: — out into traffic
9 here, and that’s where I ’m a little concerned.
10 MR. MARSHALL: And when you into autonomous or
11 remote-controlled as opposed to somebody being right there,
12 you know, within 30 feet, that’s where it becomes -- you
13 know, that’s a question of how the technology is ready, but
14 it’s also a question -- and you go to sort of what’s our
15 real underlying concern and where you really need the
16 localities. As innovative as these are, they’re only going
17 to work as well as your infrastructure allows. And, you
18 know, w e ’re not going to revamp, you know, our entire
19 sidewalk system to be able to handle statewide 550-pound
20 devices because you’re going to have sidewalks like
21 Representative Neilson’s that just aren’t designed for
22 that. And that’s why you really do need in any legislation
23 a lot more local control and, you know, final say on how
24 these work.
25 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: The last thing, at 30 56
1 feet you might as well stand out front of my house. It’s
2 faster to walk than it is to drive one of these around I ’m
3 sure, so, you know, just saying. Thank you, Chairman.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You’re welcome,
5 Eddie. And probably that means that your pizza will arrive
6 a little colder than the normal person’s pizza. I ’m
7 thinking of like -
8 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: That’s why I had a lot
9 of kids, Mr. Chairman. That’s why I got five kids, and
10 three out of five drive, so they can go pick my pizza up.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. One of the
12 things that occurs to me is like trying to navigate the
13 city sidewalks at times that have been disrupted by tree
14 roots, you know, massive oak trees that -- to some extent I
15 guess these robots -- and w e ’ll probably hear from Scott
16 Pauchnik from FedEx they might be able to be more stable
17 navigating those -- I forget what they call it when the
18 sidewalks jut up because of the tree roots and things.
19 MR. MARSHALL: You’re right. And I think
20 actually some of the -- you know, from the, you know,
21 videos that w e ’ve seen, you know, some of the FedEx
22 technology enables you to do that just like it can climb up
23 stairs. I mean, it’s actually the same technology that was
24 originally invented with the Segway, you know, to be able
25 to climb steps and things like that. I mean, that’s very 57
1 true. And that’s a question of, okay, what are the
2 standards for PDDs in terms of the technology that they be
3 able to do that. But a locality is going to have -- you
4 know, I mean, how you navigate, I mean, yes, they’re very
5 uneven sidewalks. There are also sidewalks with a lot of
6 mixed use. You know, what’s the store traffic in front of
7 it versus what’s the neighborhood traffic? And it’s one
8 thing to have a sidewalk going down a residential single
9 family home area. It’s another thing to have a sidewalk,
10 you know, on 2nd Street, you know, here in Harrisburg with
11 a lot of bars and restaurants spilling out. And those are
12 the concerns that you have.
13 I mean, you know, and, you know, you have a
14 general concern, you know, frankly, Representative
15 Schroeder mentioned, gee, wouldn’t it be great if we had a
16 whole of them. That would be a sign that people were
17 eating a lot at home, but, you know, if you had a whole lot
18 of them and you wanted to have a pedestrian-friendly
19 downtown, that may not work. Frankly, I was surprised that
20 PennDOT said it wants them off of the roads and onto the
21 sidewalks. You know, depending on your community, you may
22 say, God, I actually wanted it exactly the opposite.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Right.
24 MR. MARSHALL: So, you know, that’s a point of
25 local interest. 58
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Yes. Are you done?
2 Okay. All right. Yes, thank you. I invited your
3 questions. The reason we wanted you to come in is that you
4 do ask questions. You do think, you know, about the future
5 and what possibilities exist. And it struck me as you were
6 testifying probably there are people out there watching on
7 PCN who will roll their eyes and so, oh, my God, this kind
8 of stuff will never happen. And for most of us, we don't
9 have insurance claims. Thankfully, you don't have to deal
10 with this. But for the person who does get involved in it,
11 it's vitally important that we think it through very
12 carefully. So we appreciate the input that you have. We
13 don't want to put you on the spot.
14 MR. MARSHALL: No, no, I -
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: It's sometimes -
16 MR. MARSHALL: -- always feel welcome and -
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: That's what you
18 guys do better than anything else. You think about the
19 scenarios and try to figure out how to avoid them, so we
20 appreciate your testimony.
21 MR. MARSHALL: That's why we're wondering how you
22 yell stop to a remotely controlled vehicle.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Robot, yeah.
24 MR. MARSHALL: The other thing we were wondering,
25 you know, just because we actually do think about this 59
1 stuff -
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: There's probably
3 some IT guy out there trying to figure out -
4 MR. MARSHALL: Trying to -
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: -- how to build in
6 recognition of that.
7 MR. MARSHALL: They'll have a way to say, hey,
8 you know, there's going to be a voice recognition but -
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Right.
10 MR. MARSHALL: -- it can't just be any voice that
11 says stop because, you know -- when we first looked at
12 this, we thought, okay, this is going to be the modern
13 equivalent of cow-tipping. You know, that's just what kids
14 are going to do. You know, hey, let me turn over the, you
15 know, the remotely controlled -- and, you know, we were all
16 young once. And those are the kinds of questions that you
17 need to ask and think about before you turn over the
18 sidewalks and the roads to these. Thank you.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Thank you,
20 Sam.
21 Our next testifier is FedEx Corporation in the
22 person of Scott Pauchnik, who's the State and Local Affairs
23 Representative for FedEx. Having set the table for you,
24 Scott, come on up and try to tell us the answer to some of
25 the questions we've already raised. And, by the way, 60
1 thanks for sending the video. As I said earlier, we sent
2 it out to our members so they could see what the future
3 holds for us -
4 MR. PAUCHNIK: Absolutely.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: -- and what w e ’re
6 trying to regulate here.
7 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes, for sure.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: I appreciate that.
9 It’s so much easier to see it on a video and understand how
10 incredible these things are but also to let our minds
11 imagine what other kinds of situations could develop.
12 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes, and hopefully —
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: So —
14 MR. PAUCHNIK: Hopefully, moving forward, w e ’ll
15 be able to bring it in to actually show you a demonstration
16 of the PDD, of our own PDD anyway, Roxo.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay.
18 MR. PAUCHNIK: So —
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Well, w e ’ll look
20 forward to that.
21 MR. PAUCHNIK: Good afternoon, Chairman
22 Hennessey -
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Good afternoon.
24 MR. PAUCHNIK: -- Chairman Carroll. My name’s
25 Scott Pauchnik. I am the State and Local Government 61
1 Affairs Representative for FedEx Corporation, and I
2 represent the Mid-Atlantic region, Pennsylvania, Ohio,
3 Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia. FedEx has a
4 significantly large footprint in the State of Pennsylvania.
5 We have our corporate headquarters for our ground segment
6 located in Moon Township. We employ nearly 16,000
7 Pennsylvanians. And then in addition to that we work with
8 independent service providers, 176 of them here in
9 Pennsylvania, that employ an additional 6,500 employees.
10 So w e ’re looking at nearly 22,000 employees that we have
11 some type of footprint or our hands in in the State of
12 Pennsylvania. So we have not only that, our largest hub,
13 which you had seen before in the Lehigh Valley, the ground
14 hub.
15 As you all know, e-commerce is booming,
16 especially now with the COVID-19 pandemic. We have seen
17 astronomical numbers to the point where our business is
18 busting at the seams. Supply chains are overloaded.
19 Logistics are challenging. And something like what we have
20 before you today, this PDD legislation, can help supplement
21 that and help with that last-mile delivery, which is the
22 most difficult and most expensive in the supply chain.
23 We started in 2019 developing our PDD. Roxo is
24 the name we gave it. Don’t ask me how that happened, but
25 it’s a great name. And Roxo is a bot designed off of DEKA 62
1 Research, the iBot wheelchair model that was designed for
2 veterans coming back who were wounded, it was initially
3 designed. And so it’s a very stable base that Roxo sits
4 on, one that can navigate and traverse different types of
5 terrains, as well as mobilize in inclement weather and
6 climb steps if they are terrace-style steps and climb up
7 over curbs.
8 And it’s worth mentioning now that, you know, one
9 of the things that -- the ADA question as to whether or not
10 it would interfere with the ADA-compliant sidewalks, our
11 bot has the ability to actually go up over the curb, which
12 would not cause any issues with anyone that’s in the ADA
13 portion of the sidewalk.
14 We primarily are looking at Roxo to operate in
15 that general area of the side of the road, and then, when
16 necessary, to get on the sidewalk if there is some type of
17 obstruction while moving forward. W e ’ve had a lot of
18 discussion, and I know Sam had mentioned, you know, how is
19 this really going to work? Well, I ’ll just give you an
20 example. First of all, in an urban setting where you don’t
21 have good sidewalks, you don’t have bike lanes, cars are
22 parked on the road, there’s massive amounts of pedestrians,
23 it’s not quite there yet. So this is more designed for
24 that suburban area -- for now anyway, in the beginning, in
25 phase 1 -- suburban area that has less of that traffic on 63
1 the sides of the road, less of that traffic on the
2 sidewalk, close to a residential area, as well as close to
3 a retail center location.
4 Many of our customers are retail-type businesses.
5 They are looking for a way to take care of the demand that
6 was there well before COVID-19. They came to us in 2019
7 and said we have a demand to get that last-mile delivery,
8 whether that's in today's day you ordered pickup groceries
9 and you forgot to put on there the garlic salt or you
10 forgot to put on lettuce, and Roxo was able to get you that
11 type of product within a half an hour to 45 minutes without
12 you having to find time again on the list of the grocery
13 store's pickup or go to the actual grocery store yourself.
14 So the demand was there prior to COVID-19. It is even more
15 prevalent today after the pandemic.
16 And that's why I'd like to just mention that at
17 first it was a, you know, two- to three-type-year business
18 plan, which has changed to a now-business plan because of
19 the pandemic. So that's why we're before you and trying to
20 really do as much as we can to make sure you understand how
21 important it is that this is maybe part of a post-pandemic
22 or during-the-pandemic legislative response as something as
23 a tool in the toolkit that the consumer can use.
24 I can get a little more details, you know, zero
25 emissions, battery-operated. Our bot is larger in stature. 64
1 It sits at about four feet tall. It takes away that whole,
2 you know, possibility of it, you know, not being -- it’s at
3 eye level, so most people would be able to see it. It has
4 sensors, LiDAR, RADAR, GPS navigation, a number of other
5 proprietary technologies that will allow for it to navigate
6 around the streets, that would allow it to map the streets
7 in ways that we don’t even know today how it’s going to be
8 able to map because it maps so detailed cracks in the road,
9 you know, fire hydrants. You know, once it goes to one
10 location one time, it knows exactly where everything is at,
11 and any changes along the way, w e ’ll make those changes
12 appropriately.
13 As I said, capable of operating in inclement
14 weather. This is, you know, kind of unique to Roxo. You
15 know, I can’t speak on behalf of what else is out there,
16 but I can say that Roxo is able to navigate its way through
17 in rain situations. It has the systems and safety
18 technologies attached to it that would allow for it to do
19 that, as well as winter weather to some degree. Obviously,
20 if there’s a couple feet on the road, then it wouldn’t be
21 able to operate.
22 The advanced machine learning algorithms allow it
23 to not only map that to stop on the voice commands if
24 somebody is in the way, stop and recognize that there is an
25 obstruction. And if that obstruction would cause it to run 65
1 into a problem it could not navigate on its own, they're
2 all teleoperated. In other words, they're all able to be
3 teleoperated. And in this beginning stages of it, they
4 would be teleoperated for the period of time that you have
5 in the legislation, the 18 months, and even probably
6 beyond, until it is able to actually be out on its own.
7 And then after that, it would be monitored consistently and
8 constantly by a teleoperator.
9 It's a job-creator. Again, it's a supplement to
10 the industry. It's something that's new. You know, we
11 have, as Representative Schroeder mentioned in her
12 statement, the -- it would create jobs in the machine
13 maintenance side of things, in teleoperations, as well as
14 many other.
15 Twenty-one States have some type of PDD
16 legislation on the books, okay? Six of those States have
17 something that allows Roxo, our bot, to operate, which is
18 the heavier, much larger model, six of those States,
19 Virginia, Tennessee, Arizona, Texas, Utah, North Carolina.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: And are those pilot
21 programs or are they fully legislated?
22 MR. PAUCHNIK: That's fully legislated out to
23 where they can operate.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Interesting.
25 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes. Yes. And then the rest, the 66
1 rest of the 21 or what’s left over, most of them had
2 legislation moving, but, unfortunately, with the pandemic,
3 they have their abbreviated sessions, Maryland, for
4 instance. They really couldn’t act on it.
5 But the evolution of the PDD is what’s moving
6 everyone in the direction of increasing the weights, of
7 increasing the speeds, of allowing the actual bot to
8 operate, so it’s not necessarily that, you know, a State
9 enacted it because they only wanted to allow 50-pound
10 machines on the sidewalk. It’s more or less that that’s
11 what happened in 2019 or 2018. And now when we go in and
12 say, hey, we have a bot that’s a little bit bigger, does
13 the same thing, it’s got even more advanced technologies,
14 they are considering increasing the weights or, if they
15 don’t have legislation at all, starting off with something
16 that doesn’t have a weight limit or at least something that
17 would accommodate Roxo.
18 So it’s an important system for our ecosystem.
19 It’s an important system for e-commerce. It’s going to
20 revolutionize how products are delivered. I think that
21 this has nothing to do with the delivery service of our
22 regular systems that go through our hubs. This is that
23 last mile from retailer to consumer or retailer to
24 business. The machine, our machine in particular in our
25 business model would have it domiciled at the retail 67
1 location, so that would take away one segment of it having
2 to be on a roadway.
3 And keep in mind that this is all about
4 efficiency as much for us as it is for the consumer and the
5 local authorities. We welcome having discussions with
6 PennDOT. We welcome the local authority rule. We surely
7 don’t want to disrupt anything that’s already out there.
8 And we can’t. We can’t afford to. We can’t put this bot
9 in a situation where it cannot operate because of some of
10 the concerns that were raised earlier.
11 So by being able to have a plan, submit it to
12 PennDOT, work through the issues they have, and in addition
13 to that work with the local authorities, which the
14 legislation speaks to, I think we are poised to be ready to
15 move forward on these. Thank you for your time, and I ’m
16 happy to answer any questions.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Well, thank you
18 very much for your testimony. I ’ll just kick it off. I
19 think I ’ve seen it either in testimony or in news articles
20 that FedEx and others in that field are having trouble
21 finding qualified drivers and so that to some extent this
22 would answer that problem if you could deliver robotically
23 and stuff. I mean, is that the experience that you’re
24 hearing about, that people just, for whatever reason, don’t
25 want to be delivery drivers? 68
1 MR. PAUCHNIK: That's absolutely true. It's not
2 necessarily even that. It's finding a pipeline to get
3 young people excited about the industry because there is so
4 much potential for it. We have hired tens of thousands of
5 drivers since COVID-19 began in March. We've hired tens of
6 thousands of dockworkers and folks to actually work in our
7 warehousing sections. The industry alone was struggling
8 significantly with the recruitment and retention of
9 drivers. And, you know, that's apparent that we were, I
10 believe, 60 to 70,000 drivers short in 2018. Obviously,
11 industry picked up the pace and we were able to cover that,
12 but we're looking at something along the lines of 160 to
13 170,000 drivers short by 2028. And a lot of that has to do
14 just with the age, the aging folks that are actually
15 drivers. I think the median ages upwards of 66, 67 years
16 old. And so there's a real crisis within supply chain and
17 logistics. We are hiring. The industry is hiring.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. One other
19 question. How many other firms even in the delivery field,
20 UPS, whatever, Amazon, how many competitors do you have
21 there? You're all looking for the best robotic vehicle to
22 be developed and maybe we don't come to, you know, one
23 idea. Maybe we end up like we have cars on the roadway, 40
24 or 50 or 60 or however many different makes and models that
25 are out there. 69
1 MR. PAUCHNIK: So —
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Who is your
3 competition out there?
4 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes, so competition, I wouldn’t
5 even call it that right now because this is such a new
6 industry, new part of the industry that there’s plenty to
7 go around if you will. But the others that are out there.
8 Amazon and Starship and FedEx are the three that we know of
9 that are really out in front or at least commonly out in
10 front of this. I ’m sure other logistics companies are
11 working on it as well, but -
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: I ’m sorry, who were
13 the three, you and -
14 MR. PAUCHNIK: Starship, was mentioned earlier,
15 that was working in Oakland, and then also Amazon. And
16 that’s why the legislation, we want to make it as inclusive
17 as possible. It allows for us to not only operate our bot
18 but everyone else is included as well.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Thank you.
20 Chairman Carroll.
21 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Thank -
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: And then w e ’ll go
23 to Representative Schmitt.
24 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Thank you, Scott.
25 You said six States -- and you listed them -- have the 550- 70
1 pound Roxo authorization. Are any of those six employing
2 it?
3 MR. PAUCHNIK: Texas. Texas is.
4 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Okay. So in Texas,
5 then, the operator of the Roxo a FedEx employee or do you
6 guys farm that out to a third party?
7 MR. PAUCHNIK: That's a FedEx employee.
8 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Okay. And I know
9 you said through the whole hearing so far. Will they stop
10 if I say stop?
11 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes. Yes, it's designed to do
12 that, absolutely. And -
13 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: So —
14 MR. PAUCHNIK: And only getting stronger when it
15 comes to, you know, recognizing not only sounds like every
16 sound possible that it would be able to differentiate
17 between, yes.
18 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Okay. How long
19 have they been operating in Texas? What's the experience
20 there, length?
21 MR. PAUCHNIK: It has been up a year and a half
22 in Texas.
23 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: And what tweaks
24 have you made since it started in Texas to where we are
25 now? 71
1 MR. PAUCHNIK: Well, a lot of it has to do with
2 weather. You know, obviously, it’s different in Texas than
3 it would be here weather-wise, but we've also done some
4 beta testing along those lines in Manchester, New
5 Hampshire, as well as Memphis, Tennessee, to kind of get a
6 little grip on that. So a lot of it is the weather
7 enhancements and the mapping technology, which is something
8 that's proprietary to us that we are, you know, really
9 working on. It'll be as new as the bot is.
10 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: And in Texas you
11 mentioned, you know, the area of Houston would be suburbia
12 it sounded like to me, somewhere where there was a housing
13 development, somewhere close by to a commercial, you know,
14 corridor somewhere?
15 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes.
16 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: And is that what
17 you've done in Texas as well?
18 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yeah, it's sort of like an initial
19 phase. That's the most practical at this time where we can
20 actually operate and, you know, really fine-tune the bot.
21 Moving forward, we hope to be in an urban area or even
22 somewhat in some cases a rural area where, you know, it
23 would be able to go from that retail location, whether it's
24 two or three retail centers out to, you know, three- to
25 five-mile radius. It's pretty good, and further if we can. 72
1 We ’re hoping -- three to five miles is efficient right now.
2 The bot is able to go nine currently on its batteries and
3 then without going onto a docking station and charging.
4 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: My guess is — and
5 it’s just my guess after studying this last night and
6 hearing today -- that there'll be a vigorous discussion
7 over what sort of involvement local governments will have
8 with respect to where these are going to go. I'll be
9 shocked, truthfully, if we carve out the local governments
10 to the point where anything under 25 miles an hour they're
11 not going to have a say. My suspicion is they're going to
12 have a say. And they probably should have a say for all
13 the reasons that we heard this morning. So I hope that
14 you're open to a conversation that will include local
15 governments.
16 I know we'll hear from PSATS in a minute, but,
17 you know, and suburbia, it may be first-class townships, it
18 may be third-class cities, I'm not quite sure, but I hope
19 you will welcome the involvement at a more vigorous level
20 than the bill envisions now with respect to local
21 involvement. If we start down the path of telling the
22 locals we're going to shut them out, it will be a rocky
23 ride in the House to try and get something like this to the
24 finish line, it seems to me.
25 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes, we're absolutely happy to 73
1 work with all entities involved. I mean, the biggest thing
2 is we want to make sure that we can plan for the future.
3 In other words, we don't want a local government to
4 completely outlaw us. We're happy to come in, discuss it
5 with them, find a way that makes it work so that their
6 residents and the consumers in their area have the same
7 abilities than others do. That's kind of our biggest
8 concern. And, as you can imagine, the business planning
9 behind that is do we come into Pennsylvania, do we have,
10 you know, a number of these ready to rock 'n roll, or do we
11 have to kind of piecemeal our business plan, which makes it
12 much more difficult.
13 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Yes, I mean, but at
14 the same time if we try and steamroll the locals, then
15 you're not going to get any authority to begin with, and
16 so -
17 MR. PAUCHNIK: Right.
18 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: -- you end up in
19 this exact same spot. Just -- and, you know, newsflash,
20 Pennsylvania is never at the front of the line for change,
21 so I think it's going to be incumbent upon you and all to
22 bring folks up to speed, the local government officials,
23 the residents, and the people who use the infrastructure
24 now. They're going to have to come to understand what this
25 all means and how does it affect their usage of sidewalks 74
1 and local and State roads.
2 MR. PAUCHNIK: Happy to work with them.
3 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: So tons of
4 education work to do here. I look forward to the amendment
5 process because, undoubtedly, this will be subjected to,
6 you know, an amendatory process that will hopefully improve
7 this to the point where we can get some buy-in from
8 everyone.
9 MR. PAUCHNIK: Absolutely.
10 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Thank you.
11 MR. PAUCHNIK: Thank you.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Thank you.
13 Representative Schmitt?
14 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 Thank you, Mr. Pauchnik, for coming in this afternoon. I
16 find this technology certainly intriguing. There was a
17 question I had about Senate Bill 1199. Have you had a
18 chance to see that?
19 MR. PAUCHNIK: I have.
20 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: On page 3, it talks
21 about the personal delivery devices, and it says,
22 "authorized operators, the following persons may operate a
23 personal delivery device.” It’s subparagraph 1. ”A
24 business entity or an agent of a business entity,” so I’m
25 assuming that for purposes of this proposed legislation a 75
1 business entity would be considered a person, but that’s
2 not my question. The question I have is, "The following
3 persons may operate a personal delivery device: a business
4 entity or an agent of a business entity that exercises
5 physical control over the navigation and operation of the
6 personal delivery device and it’s within 30 feet of the
7 personal delivery device." Then there’s a second
8 subparagraph.
9 My question applies to both of the subparagraphs.
10 I’m trying to figure out how a business entity can exercise
11 physical control over the navigation and operation of the
12 personal delivery device except through an agent.
13 MR. PAUCHNIK: Right. So the business entity, in
14 our case the business entity and the agent are the same
15 since they are an employee of FedEx that would be operating
16 or be able to operate the tele-operation of it. So maybe,
17 you know, w e ’re happy to work on language that maybe makes
18 that a little clearer, but that is our business model of
19 it. It’s not that w e ’re trying to avoid the liability that
20 was discussed earlier. I mean it’s essentially maybe the
21 details are just in the language.
22 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: So the business entity
23 isn’t necessarily FedEx?
24 MR. PAUCHNIK: No, it would be FedEx.
25 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: It would be FedEx? 76
1 MR. PAUCHNIK: In our case and according to our
2 business model it would be -- FedEx would be the business
3 entity, as well as one of our employees as the agent. And
4 w e ’re not trying to make the employee liable.
5 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: No, I get that. I ’m
6 just trying to figure out how FedEx can exercise physical
7 control over the navigation and operation of the personal
8 delivery device except through an agent.
9 MR. PAUCHNIK: Well, the agent utilizes the
10 teleoperations of the bot to operate it if necessary. And
11 this is also, I believe, where it is the 18-month -
12 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Right.
13 MR. PAUCHNIK: — within 30 feet —
14 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Right.
15 MR. PAUCHNIK: I ’m not sure. I think we were
16 trying to accommodate like I believe a PennDOT maybe
17 request that we do kind of ease into this, and that’s the
18 reason for that.
19 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Well, yes, and I see
20 that in subparagraph 1. Yes, it is only for the first 18
21 months or so but -
22 MR. PAUCHNIK: Right.
23 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: -- in subparagraph 2 it
24 says beginning January 1, 2022, a business entity or an
25 agent of a business entity that enables the operation of 77
1 the personal delivery device. And you’re saying FedEx is
2 the business entity.
3 And my question is really when you see one of
4 these coming down the street, it’s a 550-pound machine.
5 It’s coming down the street. Maybe my grandsons are
6 playing, you know, on the sidewalk, and I ’d like to know is
7 there a person that is exercising direct control over the
8 operation and navigation of this machine?
9 MR. PAUCHNIK: Well, look at it this way. Phase
10 1 of it somebody would be with the machine, and that’s
11 where w e ’re at, currently working on that, and that’s what
12 the 18 months allow. We really close to the point where it
13 would be teleoperated, in other words, somebody would have
14 physical direction or physical control over the device.
15 And then the last phase would be the full autonomous where
16 only if something would obstruct it, that it could not
17 navigate itself would a teleoperator be notified or it
18 would also be similar to somebody watching the screen with
19 these out there, and if it indicates that there’s an issue,
20 then they can respond.
21 So, right now, somebody’s with the machine. We
22 move to where it’s teleoperated. And then eventually with
23 all of the AI and technology that’s deployed on these, a
24 full autonomous machine.
25 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: When you get to that 78
1 full autonomous stage, that third stage, would there be an
2 individual, and agent, a human being monitoring?
3 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes.
4 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: And how would that be
5 done?
6 MR. PAUCHNIK: Well, currently, the way we have
7 it operated would be at like a station where somebody would
8 be watching it via video screen. But I can see, as these
9 begin to grow, they would have these stations built in
10 other parts of the, you know, State or other parts of the
11 country that would be able to continue to monitor those.
12 And at any time, if necessary where the bot got into a
13 situation where it could not navigate, we have employees
14 that would be trained to go out and actually diagnose
15 whatever issues may be and deal with it.
16 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Okay. Well, thank you
17 very much.
18 MR. PAUCHNIK: Sure.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Thank you.
20 Representative Ed Neilson.
21 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: Thank you, Chairman.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You’re welcome.
23 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: Thank you for your
24 testimony. Just a couple questions. You talked about this
25 being a solution for the last mile, and then in the 79
1 legislation as you just pointed out was the operation
2 within 30 feet, an operator within 30 feet of that.
3 Doesn't that contradict that last-mile part?
4 MR. PAUCHNIK: Not necessarily. It's just
5 speaking to how the technology is evolving, and it allows
6 for the actual mapping to occur. So it's helpful to have
7 somebody walk alongside the bot so that it could continue
8 doing its mapping that it needs to do so that next time it
9 comes down the same route, it knows. So it's not
10 necessarily taking away the last mile. It still would have
11 to operate within efficiency parameters and safety measures
12 that we look for in it, so it's still able to operate -
13 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: I kind of like the idea
14 because it allows us to get used to seeing this on our
15 streets as well. I mean, this is going to take people to
16 get comfortable and used to as well, so I think that will
17 help a little bit.
18 As far as you're operating like for a year and a
19 half in Texas, as you testified earlier, has your
20 employment there gone down or up? Like you stated in the
21 beginning that you have 23,000 employees in PA. You see
22 this increasing staff or decreasing? Because I see like
23 one person overseeing 30 robots at a time or something like
24 that. Where does that come in, and where's the training of
25 those employees in other States? Are they licensed? Are 80
1 the operators licensed? Is there any continuing education
2 on their training to make certain -- there were some
3 questions brought up about inspection of the units and how
4 the brakes are inspected and the units are inspected. Are
5 they inspected daily, weekly, monthly? Is that stuff that
6 we should be looking at in this legislation to make certain
7 that kind of stuff happens? A lot of questions there.
8 MR. PAUCHNIK: Sure. Thank you, Representative.
9 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: A lot of questions.
10 This is new to all of us, and w e ’re just trying to -
11 MR. PAUCHNIK: Absolutely.
12 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: — get as much
13 information as we can -
14 MR. PAUCHNIK: Sure.
15 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: — because it’s
16 concerning.
17 MR. PAUCHNIK: So on the job front we are
18 increasing jobs in every State across the union and around
19 the world to be honest, and a lot of that has to do with
20 not only the trajectory we were on with e-commerce growing
21 at a rapid pace prior to the pandemic, but the pandemic has
22 obviously put us in a situation where people are buying
23 more goods online and utilizing our delivery services.
24 This is a supplement to that delivery service. It has
25 nothing to do with -- not have a FedEx package from 81
1 whatever one of our customers it may be coming from on it.
2 It is essentially that that item that may be lost or that
3 you forgot to get at the grocery store or -- one good
4 example I like to use is the business entity to business
5 entity, which would be like a mechanic who you take your
6 car to. Obviously, not all your smaller mechanics have the
7 ability to keep all the parts and pieces that they need to
8 fix your vehicle. They would be able to dial -- and
9 currently, I believe the way the process works they would
10 call two or three different auto-parts centers and say,
11 hey, who can get me the parts the quickest, that's who gets
12 the business type thing. Well, in this case, instead of
13 having somebody have to, you know, go and get it or leave
14 their business to go and pick up parts, they can utilize
15 Roxo to bring brakes or whatnot.
16 As far as keeping an eye on the inspection side
17 of it, the maintenance side of things, you know, that's why
18 I believe that we have in the legislation a plan that we
19 need to submit to PennDOT. I think we'll work through
20 those things with the way the plan works and how the
21 machine operates with PennDOT. And so that, I think, would
22 help cover and alleviate some of the concerns that folks
23 have about the actual operation of it. So I hope that
24 answers a couple of the questions.
25 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: Yes, that's a couple of 82
1 them. The key to the inspections and stuff like that, my
2 feeling is that we should mandate it within only because to
3 keep everybody on the same playing field, so it’s just like
4 getting our car’s inspection and admission inspections and
5 stuff like that. I mean, there’s stuff that we mandate
6 that somebody comes in and looks at that, so those
7 standards in my opinion should be laid out within this
8 legislation. I ’d ask you to work with PennDOT to do that
9 across the board so we can get industry standards at
10 minimum, and anything above and beyond, maybe they could
11 work that out in regs.
12 You brought up -- first off, the Chairman talked
13 about that video. It was real good, and I was real
14 impressed how that basketball -- because you could see
15 that’s my kid running to that ball and that bot stopping on
16 a dime, that was great. But something else you brought up
17 was weather. Being in Pennsylvania and Texas, two
18 different things. Some people shovel their sidewalks, some
19 people don’t. I mean, weather as a big deal around here.
20 How much operations do you really do in bad weather like
21 snow and stuff like that, ice? How does it know between
22 ice and snow? I mean, you can stop on snow, ice you can’t,
23 stuff like that. Is there any incidents you can bring up
24 to us that you might think of that we should watch out or
25 be aware of that? 83
1 MR. PAUCHNIK: So a lot of that testing has taken
2 place in Manchester, New Hampshire, where DEKA Research is
3 located. And, obviously, if it’s a situation where the
4 roadway or the sidewalk is not passable and really icy
5 conditions, it would not be able to operate. But in a case
6 where you have a dusting, you know, maybe up to -- I think
7 it’s up to two inches of snow right now. W e ’re working on
8 snow tires for Roxo with some, you know, heavy tread on
9 them. And that’s the truth; we are. I mean, again, it’s
10 something that’s evolving constantly. And so we have been
11 testing in those conditions up in the Northeast -
12 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: Great.
13 MR. PAUCHNIK: — to deal with that.
14 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: And the last one is
15 something that I asked that you didn’t touch on, the
16 training requirements and how many bots, the limitations of
17 how many bots an operator can operate.
18 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes, so I don’t believe -- I ’m not
19 sure on how many bots it can operate. I will have to look
20 into that for you. But the training requirement obviously
21 is something that, you know, we take very seriously. Our
22 safety teams are, you know, top-of-the-line when it comes
23 to that. And, yes, there would be training opportunities
24 for people that would be teleoperating. There are examples
25 out there. I can’t tell you who the actual businesses are 84
1 that do PDD training or something to that effect or who
2 actually operate it, but I get some more information on
3 that for the Committee.
4 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: And just a side note,
5 this bot is not going to learn my wife’s name, right,
6 because, I mean, I get a lot of FedEx drivers, they know
7 her by name.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You’re in trouble.
9 REPRESENTATIVE NEILSON: Oh, I ’ve been in
10 trouble, Chairman. Thank you.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: You’re welcome,
12 Eddie. Chairman Carroll.
13 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Scott, how do you
14 envision this 30 feet chaperone? How is that going to
15 work? I mean, so the robot is going on the sidewalk or
16 along the side of the road and the operator is walking, in
17 a vehicle? How does that work?
18 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes, so currently, they’re walking
19 next to it, and that’s the variable speeds of Roxo. It’s
20 not going to come out of the gate going 12 to 25 miles an
21 hour, not at all. That’s not the case. If it’s on the
22 side of the road or up on the sidewalk, it’s obviously
23 going to switch itself to a much lower, you know, speed and
24 kind of -
25 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Well, it’s not 85
1 going to switch itself because it's going to be remotely
2 operated.
3 MR. PAUCHNIK: Well, in this case it would be -
4 that's correct. So they would use it and be able to walk
5 right next to it as it's going down the road. So the 30
6 feet, I don't know where that number really came from, but
7 it's something that allowed us to, you know, be close to
8 the machine. And then in a case where, say, it hits the
9 roadway that it envisions doesn't have any type of traffic,
10 no foot traffic, and we know that there's a lot of places
11 like that, it would be able to pick up its speed. We want
12 to make sure that it has an opportunity to pick up its
13 speed when it needs to, to slow down to two miles an hour
14 if it needs to when navigating around pedestrians or other
15 obstacles.
16 So in the case of 2nd Street, for instance, that
17 was discussed a few times, you know, it's not going to work
18 coming down 2nd Street, so it may, you know, cut up State
19 Street or maybe not State Street because there's a few
20 restaurants there, but it would find a way to get to its
21 destination without having to disrupt what's currently in
22 place. And that's a lot of why we have that discussion and
23 want to have that discussion with the localities, to say,
24 hey, look, this is really -- don't necessarily outlaw us
25 here. Let's talk about why -- you know, we can make this 86
1 work this way, and hopefully come to an agreement on that.
2 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: All right. And
3 then for this 18-month period or however long that is and
4 the person within 30 feet, it will exclusively be operated
5 by that person, not autonomously during that 18-month
6 window?
7 MR. PAUCHNIK: That's correct, and I believe -
8 well, I don't know that it says that in the legislation,
9 but yes, it pretty much would be.
10 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Yes. Okay. All
11 right. Thanks.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Thank you, Chairman
13 Carroll.
14 One thing I wanted to point out, the 550-pound
15 weight of, you know, at least around there of Roxy -
16 MR. PAUCHNIK: Roxo.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: — Roxo, that's
18 spread out over four or six or eight tires, so we're
19 talking pounds per square inch. A concrete sidewalk is
20 probably more than capable of doing that pretty much, you
21 know, because that 550 pounds would be spread over six or
22 eight different contact points, you know, on the ground.
23 MR. PAUCHNIK: That's correct, yes. Roxo has six
24 wheels.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: One thing that 87
1 occurs to me is that one thing that may be hard to plan for
2 would be like inclement weather. For the most part, I
3 would think the operators would say -- or the owners of the
4 robots would say keep them in, keep them off the streets.
5 But if, for example, you've contracted out to, say, a
6 pharmacy and I call up and say I need that medicine and I
7 need it now, I don't care whether it's six inches of snow
8 or not, and the pharmacy management sends the robot out
9 figuring he doesn't own it, right, what happens when like a
10 snowplow comes along and sends that whole discharge of snow
11 off of the snowplow and hits the thing? Can it clear the
12 windshield and make sure that the lasers for the detectors,
13 sensors can actually see things or, you know, pretty much
14 like the rest of us do when we're driving behind a bus or a
15 tractor-trailer, you almost drive blind for 5 or 10 seconds
16 until you can get past the stuff is being thrown off the
17 wheels, you know?
18 MR. PAUCHNIK: Sure.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: How does a robot
20 correct that situation and, you know, manage to keep itself
21 safe?
22 MR. PAUCHNIK: Yes, so it goes back to Chairman
23 Carroll's question about, you know, how does this thing
24 operate, and what are you testing for now? And that's one
25 of them. I should have mentioned that. I apologize. But 88
1 it’s heated lenses. It could be, you know, windshield
2 wipers, everything that we can to make sure that it can
3 operate in those conditions, that that’s a lot of the
4 evolution of the bot is happening right now. That’s kind
5 of where we are making changes constantly.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: I ’m thinking, you
7 know, lightheartedly, it took Mercedes-Benz probably 50 or
8 60 years to invent the windshield wipers that actually
9 clean the headlights in snowstorms.
10 Thank you very much. I appreciate your
11 testimony. It’s, I think, probably an exciting time, and
12 w e ’ve got to sit here and wrestle with these kind of
13 questions and try to, you know, think out or maybe outthink
14 the people who are actually doing the computer designs and
15 -- I forget what those technicians are called -- the IT
16 technicians trying to figure out what kind of problems we
17 can throw their way and how interestingly they’ll be able
18 to figure it out.
19 MR. PAUCHNIK: Thank you.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: So it’s an exciting
21 industry you’re working in, and thank you for your
22 contributions to this legislation.
23 MR. PAUCHNIK: Absolutely. Thank you.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Seeing no other
25 questions, w e ’ll call upon Melissa Morgan, who’s the Policy 89
1 Analyst for the Pennsylvania State Association of Township
2 Supervisors. She's going to join us remotely. So,
3 Melissa, thank you for being there standing by for the
4 other testimony and questions. Just click to unmute and
5 begin your testimony whenever you're ready.
6 MS. MORGAN: Thank you. Chairman Hennessey,
7 Chairman Carroll, and Members of the House Transportation
8 Committee, I thank you for the opportunity to provide
9 comments on behalf of the 1,454 townships in Pennsylvania
10 represented by the Pennsylvania State Association of
11 Township Supervisors.
12 The Association is a non-partisan, non-profit
13 member service organization. Our member townships
14 represent 5.6 million Pennsylvanians, more residents than
15 any other type of Pennsylvania municipal government and
16 cover 95 percent of the Commonwealth's land mass.
17 Over the last few years, e-commerce, as you've
18 heard about today, has exploded, which has increased the
19 demand on delivery services. And the current pandemic has
20 accelerated this already-growing trend. We understand the
21 need for improved efficiencies and new technology to allow
22 delivery companies to meet this growing demand and
23 understand that a number of companies have developed
24 autonomous devices, essentially delivery robots, to help
25 fulfill this need. These are new devices, and there will 90
1 be areas where it may not be safe to operate them due to
2 sight distances and traffic issues.
3 We appreciate that changes were made in the
4 Senate to an earlier version of Senate Bill 1199 to
5 recognize the importance of local control in evaluating
6 safety issues and, in those specific locations where the
7 operation of these devices would constitute a hazard in
8 pedestrian areas, on the local road, or both, to allow the
9 prohibition of their operation.
10 We believe it is critical, as w e ’ve heard
11 throughout the conversation today, that municipal officials
12 be empowered to exercise local control for public safety
13 purposes. We also like to echo some of the comments heard
14 today that municipal officials must be able to provide for
15 temporary restrictions or prohibitions during a snow or
16 other emergency.
17 As the technology for automated vehicles and
18 delivery devices is developed and is deployed, we also
19 believe that there is a need for more local official
20 representation on the State’s Highly Automated Vehicle
21 Advisory Committee. Current law provides for only one
22 municipal representative, but we believe it is important to
23 have the perspective of different types of communities as
24 the challenges posed in urban, suburban, and rural
25 communities will be different. 91
1 As such, we request that townships have a seat at
2 the table, particularly as we have come to understand that
3 improvements may be needed to local roads to facilitate
4 automated devices such as those that w e ’re talking about
5 today.
6 Under this bill, a device would be regulated as a
7 pedestrian and not as a motor vehicle. We question whether
8 this is appropriate, as "pedestrian" is defined in Title 75
9 as "a natural person afoot." We understand due to the
10 limitation of these devices and their operation in
11 pedestrian areas that they should probably not be regulated
12 as a motor vehicle. However, would it be more appropriate
13 to, let’s say, have a separate category for these PDDs?
14 Finally, while these devices would need to have
15 clearly identifiable markers with the name, contact
16 information, and unique identification of the owner of the
17 personal delivery device, we question whether these markers
18 should also have a unique identifier for the particular
19 device itself. As these devices are implemented to help
20 promote commerce, we appreciate the critical inclusion of
21 local control to keep these devices from becoming a hazard
22 in specific identified areas. And we are happy to work
23 with the sponsor and the Members of the Committee on
24 improvements to the legislation.
25 Thank you for the opportunity to participate 92
1 today. I'm also happy to take any questions that you have.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Thank you, Melissa,
3 for your comments. You had just mentioned something that I
4 was thinking of, and that's a unique identifier for the
5 particular device. You're not talking about serial
6 numbers; you're talking about something that's a visual
7 marker on the robot that people can see. If I'm an
8 oncoming driver, I see and know that this is a robot.
9 MS. MORGAN: Correct, some sort of unique
10 identifier -
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: And do you have -
12 MS. MORGAN: -- maybe similar to a license plate.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Can you give us any
14 suggestions in terms of what that might be, what it might
15 look like?
16 MS. MORGAN: Potentially in terms of like a
17 license plate or you could identify, you know, by letter
18 and number on it potentially, so if you saw something doing
19 something, you can also report that as well and know which
20 one you were talking about.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: I thought you were
22 going down the line of some sort of a colored flashing
23 marker like maybe a green flashing light like we have on
24 emergency vehicles, red flashing lights, blue lights.
25 MS. MORGAN: In Senate Bill 1199 there is some 93
1 white light and red light regulation, but we are more
2 looking for like a unique number that a citizen could
3 identify.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. One of the
5 things that strikes me as technology develops is that some
6 of the headlights w e ’re seeing on the newer model cars
7 almost look like blue laser lights or something. I don’t
8 know what the technology is, but they are almost blinding
9 when you’re driving along, especially if it’s the only car
10 coming toward you when you’re driving along at night, your
11 eyes adjust to a certain light level, and then suddenly
12 somebody comes at you with these garish blue lights that
13 almost completely blind you for a couple of seconds. You
14 know, do you have any -- aside from the robot issue, you
15 know, do you guys deal with those kind of issues, PSATS,
16 and any suggestions on how we can control them or limit
17 them or modify some of the new technologies coming down the
18 pike?
19 MS. MORGAN: I mean, not directly in terms of
20 that technology.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay.
22 MS. MORGAN: We would be welcome to discuss that
23 with PennDOT or yourself.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay. Mike, do you
25 have any questions? 94
1 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: I assume you heard
2 the conversation I had with FedEx a moment ago and my
3 desire to see if there’s a way to reconcile the need for
4 local governments to have buy-in here. Without being able
5 to cite it off the top of my head, it’s probably page 5
6 somewhere, the inability for local governments to have any
7 regulatory ability under 25 miles an hour, is that your
8 understanding of the bill as it’s currently written?
9 MS. MORGAN: In terms of our -- my understanding
10 is that they are able to prohibit it if it would constitute
11 a hazard under 25 miles an hour either in the roadway on
12 the sidewalk.
13 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Yes, I remember the
14 phrase "as appropriate” somewhere here, and I ’m not sure
15 exactly what "as appropriate" means. Line 23 I guess on
16 page 5. It’s more than once. It’s on 17 and -- so I guess
17 what I ’m after is, as currently written, is this a bill
18 that PSATS could support?
19 MS. MORGAN: Yes. As currently written, we can
20 be okay with it. We definitely would be welcome to
21 clearing up some of the local control wording in there, and
22 if there are those that think it needs to be tightened a
23 little bit, w e ’d be happy to be a part of that
24 conversation.
25 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Okay. Because I 95
1 guess I was a little bit more concerned in that answer with
2 respect to the willingness of local governments to buy into
3 the language as currently written. So I guess what I ’ll
4 say is that w e ’ll keep the conversation going for the
5 moment.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Okay.
7 DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN CARROLL: Thanks.
8 MS. MORGAN: Thank you.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HENNESSEY: Thank you. Anyone
10 else have any questions here?
11 Okay. One of the benefits of being the last
12 testifier is you don’t have that many questions. A lot of
13 the questions have already been asked of other witnesses.
14 So I don’t think there’s anyone who’s called in and asked
15 to be -- or emailed in and asked to be recognized, so thank
16 you very much, Melissa, for your testimony. Thanks to all
17 our testifiers. And we will adjourn. Thank you.
18
19 (The hearing concluded at 3:04 p.m.) 96
1 I hereby certify that the foregoing proceedings
2 are a true and accurate transcription produced from audio
3 on the said proceedings and that this is a correct
4 transcript of the same.
5
6
7 Christy Snyder
8 Transcriptionist
9 Diaz Transcription Services