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Philadelphia council holds hearing on driverless rideshares as concerns mount over safety, jobs and data
Summary
A joint Philadelphia City Council hearing drew testimony from city officials, AI experts, labor leaders and riders about Waymo’s testing and the broader implications of driverless rideshare fleets — with safety failures, economic displacement and data privacy emerging as the chief concerns.
Philadelphia’s City Council convened a joint public hearing to examine the arrival of driverless rideshare vehicles in the city and the implications for worker protections, rider safety, emergency response and oversight.
Anna Kelly, senior policy adviser for EV and parking at the city’s Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems, told the joint committee that Pennsylvania’s Act 130 (2022) preempts local regulation of certified driverless vehicles and that Waymo has been testing in Philadelphia under a PennDOT permit since 2025. Kelly said the city has formed an intergovernmental working group — including Streets, Commerce, Police, Fire and other agencies — to prepare first-responder training and incident coordination, and that the city is coordinating with PennDOT and the Philadelphia Parking Authority on permitting and incident reporting.
The preemption under state law emerged repeatedly as a practical constraint. “While the city is entirely preempted in…
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