November 22, 2016

Docket Management Facility

U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Avenue SE
West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140
Washington, DC 20590-0001

Re: Notice and Request for Comments on Federal Automated Vehicles Policy,
NHTSA Docket No. 2016-0090, Fed. Reg. No. 2016-22993.

On behalf of Lyft, I am pleased to submit these comments regarding the National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (“NHTSA”) Request for Comment on the
“Federal Automated Vehicles Policy” (“Policy”) published in the Federal Register on
September 23, 2016.

Lyft believes that highly autonomous vehicles (“HAV”) hold tremendous potential to
decrease the frequency and severity of motor vehicle accidents, reduce congestion
and CO2 emissions, and transform cities and the way people move around them. We
also believe that a ridesharing network, like Lyft, is the most efficient, safe, and
affordable manner for deploying HAVs to communities across the country. In line
with our ardent and diligent efforts to work with the public, regulators and
policymakers to strike the proper balance between innovation and regulation with
respect to traditional ridesharing, Lyft looks forward to bringing that same rigor and
diligence to working with the public and NHTSA to do the same with respect to the
deployment of HAVs.

What is Lyft

In 2012 Lyft became the first company to establish peer-to-peer, on-demand

ridesharing, which is now what the world knows simply as ridesharing. Lyft now
connects millions of people a week with efficient, affordable and safe rides in their
community. Ridesharing enhances access to alternative forms of transportation and
acts as a complement to the existing transportation infrastructure in communities
across the nation. More than anything, Lyft is about giving people choices.

Safety has and will continue to be the foundation that Lyft was built upon. What
really distinguishes Lyft from traditional for-hire services is how we utilize
technology to help ensure a safe riding experience. Every Lyft ride is tracked via GPS.
When a rider is matched with a driver via Lyft, the rider receives a picture and the
user rating of the driver and the make and model of the vehicle coming to pick them
up. Lyft's user rating system allows a riders to provide instant feedback on safety,
navigation, and overall ride experience. Drivers are also able to rate riders and flag
abusive or dangerous situations. That is real time feedback that you won't find with
legacy services.

We are also proud that Lyft is more than just a ridesharing application - it is a way to
bring communities across the nation together. The Lyft community is made up of
retirees, single moms, graduate students, folks trying to get around and families
simply trying to make ends meet. Today, Lyft currently provides over 17 million rides
a month to our community of consumers. We literally interact with hundreds of
thousands of consumers seeking a safe, affordable and reliable means of transport
from coast to coast every single day.

Our platform, and all the safety enhancements and convenience that it entails, has
quickly taken an idea that was unheard of a few years ago - getting a ride from a
stranger - and made it an everyday part of life. Lyft has provided much needed
supplemental income to drivers, made transportation more accessible to those
without access to other modes of public transport, provided an alternative to
drinking and driving, and led to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional consumer
spending in the economies where we operate.

Lyft’s role in the coming transportation revolution

Lyft’s commitment to HAVs is rooted in the belief that the inherent benefits of such
vehicles should be affordable and available to all segments of the public, regardless
of income, geography, or disability. This belief, when combined with our long-held,
core vision of a more efficient, community-based, affordable, shared use network of
cars, puts Lyft at the center of not only the development of such technology, but also
its acceptance and adoption. As a result, Lyft believes that the Policy put forward by
NHTSA can be gradually improved to account for the benefits that our platform
brings in terms of public acceptance, public awareness, and public availability of such
technology.

Our comments to date are intended as part of what we hope is an ongoing and
iterative dialogue between NHTSA and Lyft. The purpose of that dialogue is to
improve the Policy with respect to the scope of data required to be submitted by
manufacturers and other entities to achieve the safety related objectives it sets forth,
the role that ridesharing platforms can play in educating consumers, the balance
between State legislative action and NHTSA’s authority, and the need for additional
Congressional action with respect to certain authorities and resources.
Privacy of consumer data and trust as a core tenet to public acceptance

Maintaining a relationship of trust with our user base is core to our ability to best
serve our drivers and passengers. This includes protecting sensitive personally
identifiable information (“PII”) such as names, telephone numbers, and credit card
information. It also extends to information about their usage patterns, their real time
and past geo-location information, and other aspects of ride data specific to them.
While the Vehicle Performance Guidance (“Guidance”) title of the Policy speaks in
many instances about privacy, it speaks in terms of the responsibilities on
manufacturers and other entities to protect the privacy of consumer data they
collect. Without such prompting, Lyft already has in place a robust suite of consumer
privacy protections.

However, Lyft is concerned that the guidance does not set forward a clear statement
that NHTSA is neither seeking, nor interested in seeking, such consumer use data. We
urge NHTSA to make clear that the data the Administration is seeking from
manufacturers and other entities as part of the guidance is not intended to include
specific consumer data collected by any ridesharing platform or other platform that
is associated with the use of an HAV. Ultimately, Lyft believes that assuring the public
that the data the Federal Government is seeking on such vehicles is limited to
maintaining the safety of the vehicle is key to gaining public acceptance. A belief
that “big government” will be sifting through PII and collecting consumer ride history
will erode public trust and inhibit public acceptance and adoption of this
transformational technology.

Lyft as a leader in educating consumers

Expanding on the notion of public trust and acceptance, Lyft believes the guidance
overlooks the critical role that ridesharing platforms such as ours will have in
educating consumers, not only about HAVs generally, but also about what may be
occurring once a consumer is in an HAV that is associated with our platform. As
previously mentioned, Lyft believes that deploying HAVs via our platform will
democratize the benefits of such technology in a way that an ownership model
cannot. Additionally, through our technology platform, we have a unique ability to
connect with millions of consumers via their smartphones in a way that other
industry models cannot.

In light of the inherent advantages to reach and educate consumers that the Lyft
platform provides, we ask that the guidance more formally recognize that alternative
industry models may be able to address issues such as consumer education in
innovative and different ways. Moreover, Lyft believes that the guidance should also
recognize that platforms such as ours may supplement, or even supplant in some
instances, the responsibilities of the human machine interface as they relate to
informing consumers as to what is happening with the vehicle and safeguarding the
security of such consumers while in the vehicle. This is especially true with respect to
HAVs with level 4 and level 5 capabilities. Lyft believes that the flexibility inherent in
the guidance overall is commendable, and that such flexibility can be better reflected
by accounting for the various industry models that will be involved in the
deployment of such technology.

Ensuring a more unified national framework

In regards to the intent of the policy to help foster a consistent, unified national
framework for the regulation of HAVs, Lyft offers two suggested changes.

First, in the absence of a single national framework established at the Federal level
and assuming that States will be active in regulating HAVs irrespective of any
request from NHTSA to refrain from such action, the model State policy should
directly encourage States to adopt reciprocity provisions that would accelerate the
ability for deployment of HAVs across the nation for vehicles whose operational
design domains have already been safely and successfully tested or deployed
elsewhere. The proposed model State policy now encourages States to require that
testing be done in their State before deployment can occur. This requirement in
effect silos off each State from taking account of the testing or deployment that has
occurred in other jurisdictions. For example, if a vehicle whose operational design
domain has been successfully tested or deployed in State A, the model State policy
does not encourage State B to recognize that achievement. Instead it encourages
that same vehicle with the same operational design domain to undergo a new round
of testing in State B prior to being able to be deployed in State B. Lyft believes that
encouraging States to learn from one another and to acknowledge the successes
that have occurred outside their borders will help to remove unnecessary frictions in
the widespread adoption and deployment of this life saving technology.

Second, we suggest removing from the model State policy the need for HAV
operators to obtain a special license. Requiring specialty licenses to operate an HAV
adds unnecessary burdens to the process, imposes potential impediments to those
with disabilities, and incentivizes manufacturers and others to take actions that it
would otherwise would not with respect to addressing consumer concerns.

Affirmatively encouraging States to create a new licensing scheme and impose

administrative burdens unique to potential HAV operators will create barriers to
adoption, acceptance and use of HAVs. The spectre of a new licensing scheme raises
questions as to who will qualify, on what basis they will qualify, and if such schemes
will unfairly favor one industry model over another. For example, will only those with
engineering degrees qualify as specially licensed HAV operator? Will a person whose
disability does not allow them to physically take control of the vehicle be barred from
obtaining an HAV operator’s special license? Will incumbent and entrenched
industries use the new licensing scheme to create additional barriers to entry to keep
out new competitors, such as by forcing potential operators to undergo a fingerprint
based background check or by expressly prohibiting rideshare drivers from obtaining
an operator’s license?

Moreover, encouraging States to develop new licensing schemes only incentivizes

manufacturers and other entities to altogether remove any potential safety operator
from an HAV, perhaps sooner than would have otherwise occurred. While the
ultimate goal of Lyft and others is to deploy fully self-driving level 4 and 5 HAVs,
wherein no human operator is required to be present, we may feel that as part of our
role in gaining public acceptance and adoption of such vehicles by consumers that
having a safety operator in the vehicle is a necessary precursor. Given that the
vehicle performance guidance posits an onus on manufacturers and other entities to
ensure that its staff, dealers, distributors, employees, and end use consumers are
educated on the operational parameters, capabilities and limitations,
engagement/disengagement methods, HMI, emergency fall back scenarios,
operational boundary responsibilities, and potential mechanisms that could change
function behavior in vehicle service, States can be assured that any safety operator
that may be voluntarily placed in the vehicle in the context of platforms like Lyft are
learned about the vehicle they are operating.

Congressional action is warranted to expand exemption authority

Lyft recognizes the immense and difficult task that NHTSA has in keeping pace with
the rate of change in the HAV industry and in promoting our shared goal of ensuring
the safety of every HAV that is put on the road. Ensuring that HAVs, or any vehicle
for that matter, that transports a Lyft consumer, is safe is of foremost importance to
Lyft. In recognition of that mutual interest, Lyft supports expanding the Agency’s
existing exemption authority to facilitate the safe testing and introduction of
innovative new safety features in newly redesigned HAVs.

Level 4 and 5 automation, and the concomitant removal of a human driver, allows for
the potential of an overhaul of the conceptual design of the interior of a vehicle. The
ability to redesign the interior of a vehicle offers boundless possibilities in terms of
making the interior of the vehicle more safe, secure and accessible for its occupants.
The freedom to innovate with respect to the redesign of the interior of a vehicle
around safety blends well with the Agency’s primary approach to reducing traffic
fatalities in the last several decades which has been to improve occupant protection
by making the passenger cabin more robust and capable of protecting drivers and
passengers. Furthermore, expanding the exemption authority may also promote
innovation on ways to orient the vehicle for those with disabilities and around the
overall consumer experience. As such, Lyft not only supports expanding the current
statutory volume and time limitations by manyfold, but also supports the
establishment of expanding the purpose of the exemption to include testing and
evaluation of ways to promote access for those with disabilities, and perhaps, even
on a more limited scale, to promote public acceptance and adoption of HAVs.

Lyft is also supportive of NHTSA’s request for increased funding and special hiring
authority to broaden its existing expertise and enhance its knowledge by accessing a
variety of scientific and technical viewpoints and experts, especially on emerging
technologies. The complexity and level of engineering, programming, robotics,
software, and hardware involved with HAVs is only increasing. As AI and machine
learning advances, this complexity will only increase in the future. Ensuring that the
Agency with lead responsibility for ensuring safety with respect to HAVs has the
necessary authority and financial resources to properly staff, understand, and
evaluate this technology will be critical to ensuring that the public is accepting of
these vehicles.

Conclusion

Lyft appreciates the opportunity to provide comments on NHTSA’s Federal

Automated Vehicles Policy.

Sincerely,

Robert Grant
Director of Government Relations