ADS-Equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Parts 595 and 597</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2024-0100]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2127-AM60</RIN> <SUBJECT>ADS-Equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This document proposes a voluntary framework for the evaluation and oversight of motor vehicles equipped with automated driving systems (ADS). The ADS-equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency, and Evaluation Program (AV STEP) would establish a national program for ADS-equipped vehicles that operate or may operate on public roads in the United States under NHTSA's oversight with the goal of improving public transparency related to the safety of certain ADS-equipped vehicles, while allowing for responsible development of this technology. This proposal includes procedures for application, participation, public reporting, and program administration. It identifies content requirements for applications, including independent assessments of ADS safety processes, such as the safety cases used and conformance to industry standards. These application requirements will inform NHTSA's decisions on terms and conditions for participation. The proposal also contains reporting requirements for participants, including periodic and event-triggered reporting. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are requested on or before March 17, 2025. In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, NHTSA is also seeking comment on a new information collection. For additional information, see subsection D (Paperwork Reduction Act) under Section IX (Regulatory Notices and Analyses). All comments relating to the information collection requirements should be submitted to NHTSA and to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the address listed in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section on or before March 17, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments to the docket number identified in the heading of this document by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management Facility, M-30, U.S. Department of Transportation, West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> U.S. Department of Transportation, West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> (202) 493-2251. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions received must include the agency name and docket number or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this rulemaking. All comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. For detailed instructions on sending comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the “Public Participation” heading of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. Comments on the proposed information collection requirements should be submitted to OMB at <E T="03">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> To find this particular information collection, select “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comment” or use the search function. It is requested that comments sent to OMB also be sent to the NHTSA rulemaking docket identified in the heading of this document. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the dockets or to read background documents or comments received, please visit <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> and/or Docket Management Facility, M-30, U.S. Department of Transportation, West Building, Ground Floor, Rm. W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. The Docket Management Facility is open between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For non-legal issues: Katherine L. Chasins, Rulemaking Office of Automation Safety by email: <E T="03">katherine.chasins@dot.gov,</E> or phone: (202) 366-7396. For legal issues: Hunter B. Oliver, Office of the Chief Counsel by email: <E T="03">hunter.oliver@dot.gov,</E> phone: (202) 366-8875. The mailing address for these officials is: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Program Context</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. How the Current ADS Technology Landscape Shaped This NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. How NHTSA's Authorities Shaped This NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. NHTSA's Mission and ADS Activity</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. NHTSA Exemptions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Program Structure (Regulatory Text Subpart A)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Program Eligibility</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Program Steps</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Terms and Conditions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Application and Review (Regulatory Text Subparts B and D)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Application Form</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Operational Baseline</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Location Sheet</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Confirmation of Reporting During Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Protocols for ADS Operations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Law Abidance</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. System Fallback Response</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. User and Surrounding Road User Interactions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Data Governance Plan</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Independent Assessment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Focus of Independent Assessment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Summary Report Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Assessment Context Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Reliability and Credibility Disclosures</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Application Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Participation (Regulatory Text Subparts E and F)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Reporting Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Periodic Reporting</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Event-Triggered Reporting</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Update Reporting</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Agency Protocols</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Amendment Process</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Concern Resolution Process</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Public Reporting Requirements (Regulatory Text Subpart G)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VII. Requirements for AV STEP Exemptions (Regulatory Text Subpart C)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Exemption Eligibility Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Exemption Application Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Exemption Participation Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Exemption Public Reporting</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VIII. Public Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IX. Regulatory Notices and Analyses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Orders 12866, 13563, 14094 and DOT Regulatory Policies and Procedures</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Need for Regulation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Uncertainties and Assumptions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Costs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Benefits</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">5. Regulatory Approaches Considered</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. National Environmental Policy Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Executive Order 13132 (Federalism)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Executive Order 12988 (Civil Justice Reform)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Executive Order 13609: Promoting International Regulatory Cooperation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Privacy Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Regulation Identifier Number</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Plain Language</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Rule Summary</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> Automated driving systems (ADS)  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> are evolving rapidly, posing challenges to vehicle manufacturers and the agency alike regarding the safety of the traveling public. It is important that ADS technology be deployed in a manner that protects the public from unreasonable safety risk while at the same time allowing for responsible development of this technology, which has the potential to advance safety. Under NHTSA's existing regulatory framework, which implements the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act (Safety Act), <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> motor vehicle manufacturers may already deploy ADS-equipped vehicles on public roads, as long as they comply with existing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and state and local laws. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Automated driving systems are systems developed (or being developed) to fully perform the driving task without any expectation of an attentive human driver. ADS-equipped vehicles are sometimes referred to as self-driving cars or autonomous vehicles. In contrast, driver support features (sometimes referred to as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems or ADAS), such as highway or parking assist features, must be continuously supervised by a human driver. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  49 U.S.C. Ch. 301. </FTNT> Many ADS operations take this approach, and the FMVSS do not currently set performance standards specifically for ADS. Vehicles ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 475k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━