Breakout Group B

Notes/Feedback
Key Ideas:

• A consensus effort is required

• Help establish a safety methodology that the standards bodies can 

translate into standards and other stakeholders can use to advantage:

• We can help move things along in the short term. It is not reasonable to 

expect us to develop the gold standard in methodologies up front - it will 

be a long iterative process. We need to enable this process 

• What is the lowest common denominator that we all agree on and begin from this

• Need to define roles and responsibilities for the process we will embark upon

• How far do we have to drive things over the next 6 months to a year

• We can use what exists today and drive towards an agile framework for testing

• Establish metrics - we can do this in the short term

• A mix of metrics e.g.: collisions, rules of road violations, etc

• Bring human driver and law enforcement, first responders, school bus drivers etc. into the discussion

• Get candidate methodology(s) out to the public and media for feedback - get public into the loop ASAP
Key Ideas (cont.)

• Next steps for what? Widely adoptable safety methodology

• Assemble team of knowledgeable experts to start drafting framework

• Need to begin capturing in documents

• Need to evaluate what we have and roll into frameworks 

• Identify core scenarios that equate to basic driving skills and methods of 

testing capabilities in those scenarios

• Use risk analysis to identify representative set of edge cases outside of core 

scenarios to ensure capabilities beyond core in most important edge cases

• Develop objective test methods for core and edge scenarios

• How do we select amongst the infinite number of edge cases which ones 

are really important that we need to focus on
1. What are appropriate definitions of ‘safety’ in a measurement context, including whether it may be a system 

measure, a component measure (hardware, software, etc.), a behavior/performance measure, or some 

combination of these?

Safety Definition:

• Don’t kill, damage or hurt anything or anyone including property damage

• No fatalities

• Is safety equivalent to current defs/standards or does it have to be better? 

• What benchmark should we use? Fatality, injury rates, protect life.

• Need to evaluate system safety as well as performance requirements - need to eval

unintended consequences

• How far out are we looking to define safety - today’s requirements are different than 

what will be implemented in the future

• Assume 20 years out:

• Need to use probability as the basis for safety definition - need to use probabilistic math 

to assess system safety - need to assign risk to all ADS activities and use math to assess 

system level risk

• Will humans accept machine error - will ADS equipped vehicles have to act flawlessly
1. What are appropriate definitions of ‘safety’ in a measurement context, including whether it may be a system measure, a component measure (hardware, software, etc.), a behavior/performance measure, or some combination of these?

Metrics/Measures

• Have to define metrics and use them to calculate if ADS performance is within acceptable levels of safety

• System level safety metrics/measurements are required

• Foreseeable and unforeseeable, preventable and unpreventable – need metrics and methods in each category 

• Qualitative versus quantitative metrics: needs to address needs of policy makers and testing community

• Number of handoffs back to human for L3

• Metrics apply to all SAE levels - we will consider L4

• Thermal, G levels, Psychological effects - need to address all of these We need to drive towards consensus around metrics

• Comfort is a business issue more than a safety issue. Need to focus on actual physical harm

• Is a near collision a safety issue – is it a metric that should be measured?

• Need to address probability of safety measures – how to measure this probability is a key challenge

• Behavioral measures may be more important than component safety measures - need to establish system level safety evaluation capability

• Behavior of ADS vehicles needs to be assessed with respect to other ADS vehicles and human driven vehicles

• Need to be careful with metric definition as may enhance tech development but could impede ADS deployment

• Measures need to take risk reward into account - perspective and outcome based evaluation

• Need to develop measures in advance of deployment that will give user community confidence. We will have to adapt safety measures as technology is deployed

• We need to define a minimum bar - maybe 10 fold improvement in current safety 

• Need to define mathematically so machines can implement/understand

• Evaluation by third party is important need

• If your insurance company is willing to insure a vehicle - this will be a critical quantitative measure - and liability will define what levels of safety are required

• Actuarial assessment needs years and years of data - how do we get this data given pace of technology implementation

• Frequency and severity of damage will define insurance acceptability

• Transparency of the system is critical - needs to be able to tell us what and why it is making decisions

• Need to understand how ADS systems interact with other ADS systems and human drivers – and why

• Need to enable VtV communication collaboration

• Pedestrian avoidance - can we define a three strikes and your out measure - can we accept that pedestrians can be at fault or do we need to be 100 percent protective of pedestrians
1. What are appropriate definitions of ‘safety’ in a measurement context, including whether it may be a system 

measure, a component measure (hardware, software, etc.), a behavior/performance measure, or some 

combination of these?

Other thoughts:

• There needs to be congruency between public expectations and real word performance

• One is an objective measure and the other depends on the individual

• Public perception is a key concern - need to define safety with this in mind

• Have to be careful given human issues with assessing risk

• Perception is important as humans will not accept tech if perception is negative

• At certain point will get herd immunity from the number of vehicles deployed and from the duration of 

deployment

• Percent of ADS in a ODD impacts the safety performance in the ODD - need to take this into account

• Need to account for how ADS was driving at time of accident - need to be able to collect this data

• Sharing data and keeping it over time may be problematic - as tech will change and data will not be compatible

• Insurance companies will have to figure out how to massage data
2. Is there a need for widely-adoptable measurement methods for ADS-equipped vehicle safety? Are there risks 

in not pursuing such methods? If so, what are some examples?

Strong consensus for the development of widely supported measurement methods

• There is a need for the stakeholders to take what already has been specified and expand on it . Need to 

address long term efficiency

• Concern - there is no silver bullet - measures will be applicable in some domains but not in others or for 

specific operations

• Delivery systems vs passenger carriers as an example - they have very different requirements

• Can we use the existing standards/measures for vehicles as the baseline for ADS enabled vehicles?

• Big question is how to develop the methodology - who takes responsibility for developing them - how can 

this be done

• We need to develop common set of higher level scenarios and ODDs and then can develop specific measures 

from these - keep the common methodology general and then allow community to differentiate on them 

basic scenarios my form an entry level path to an ODD

• Example - can you negotiate a cloverleaf - this is an example of a test - that will define what ODDs a 

particular ads VEHICLE CAN OPPERATE IN

• Pursuit a measurement approach - need to make sure that measurement methods defined cannot be gamed

• Is there value in having a basic set of tests - at least this establishes a baseline even if they can be gamed

• Introducing a variability methodology will prevent gaming
2. Is there a need for widely-adoptable measurement methods for ADS-equipped vehicle safety? Are there risks 

in not pursuing such methods? If so, what are some examples?

• We can think about gaming potential and make sure we develop methods to minimize potential

• Companies that self evaluate their approaches - this is a good thing - companies will be cpompelled to 

effectively address safety

• Standard methodology can help inform the public

• Stars on cars for automation - can define methods in ways that are understandable to the public

• Let states dictate safety testing requirements - define a program and evaluate performance of car against it

• Feds would define a menu of safety requirements/tests and each state would chose the applicable tests from 

this menu

• This allows ads to be certified for entire country and yet be certified for individual states

• Each state can define the ODDs that you have to comply with in their state and your ADS vehicle needs to 

prove compliance

• Question how do you prevent ADS from entering a state’s roads for which it is not certified

• Each state needs a working group for AV safety requirements

• We could look at the emissions as a model for how to establish requirements - vary from state to state

• Can we use geofencing to address vehicles entering ODDs that are outside their certified capabilities
3. What are possible safety measurement methods (simulation, test track, on-road, etc.)? 

What are possible safety metrics (miles driven, pass/fail vs. formal model, etc.)?

Measurement Methods:

• Develop approach that deploys simulation, off road and on road testing appropriately -

optimal combination of all three approaches

• Sim vs on track - model based assessment - need to be able to evaluate the validity of the 

modeling

• Derive synergies from the learning from local, state, national stakeholders, regulators, 

overseers, etc from feedback from first responders

• Metrics should guide tech development but may inhibit deployment

• Flagging is an issue - different approaches in different localities
3. What are possible safety measurement methods (simulation, test track, on-road, etc.)? What are possible safety metrics (miles driven, pass/fail vs. formal 

model, etc.)?

Possible Safety Metrics:

• Statistical: 

• Outcome measure - harm to external things

• Behavioral: Have list of scenarios and have performance requirements assigned to each 

• Testability & trust: Need to be cognizant that developers can fudge results associated with scenarios

• Need live assessment of performance to scenarios by testing agencies

• Need to assign probabilistic requirements to performance against scenarios

• What activities are correlated with accident causation - may need to use these as measures in many cases 

• Process measures - did you complete a certain safety process or not

• Reliability and availability of a system

• Safe Distance / TTC & acceleration

• should not be a metric but rather a programmable variable

• RSS - very mathematical - also need to define safety using human concepts - safe distance, etc - so can easily explain approach to safety to humans

• Amount of redundancy is important - look to aircraft industry

• Should be able to predict where a vehicle should be accurately for short time intervals - can use this to advantage
3. What are possible safety measurement methods (simulation, test track, on-road, etc.)? What are possible safety metrics (miles driven, pass/fail vs. formal 

model, etc.)?

Issues:

• Leading and lagging indicators - need to take into account when developing metrics/measures

• Metrics should not inhibit technology development

• How do ADS systems safely extract themselves from safety challenges - learn this from human approaches

• Need to make sure that psychological impact on passengers in acceptable - cannot cause heart attacks, etc.

• Need to monitor stress levels on passengers

• This will vary based on ODD

• Different metrics required for different stakeholders

• Need to be able to communicate needed updates to full community of ADSs - to implement corrections rapidly

• Update process need to be compatible with realtime processing in the ADS vehicles

• Metrics need to be ODD sensitive

• We need to work as a community and take the best existing ideas and integrate them and continue to refine and broaden them

• There are safety tests that are too expensive - need to have approaches to test these scenarios

• Need to implement (use existing proven approaches where applicable) diligent S/W validation procedures - regression, etc

• We need to have an adaptive approach to safety that learns from what we learn as the deployment process proceeds

• Safety metrics have to be reevaluated and refined as deployment proceeds.
4. Are there emerging best-practices around pre-deployment safety measurement methods? Around post-deployment measurement methods? (including the methods and metrics described above).

• Simulation approaches and the off road and on road testing are a good start

• Number of miles driven

• Scenarios

• ODD specific scenarios

• # of Disengagements

• For post deployment

• Crash reporting data

• Comparative measure against human drivers

• Need to develop safety matrices out of the shared DATA being collected

• VSSA process is a good start for this

• From aviation sector mops minimal operational performance standards - we need to develop these for ADS

• How do the various players in our highway environments interact with each others

• Common approach is good - provides basis for establishing that have performed your due diligence

• Need to make sure that safety requirements address needs and concerns of the breadth of public 

groups - need to be inclusive of the target groups in the design process

• Manufacturers need to test against their competitors vehicles and the breadth of other vehicles

• Resilience - ability of ADS systems to recover when faced with anomalies

•
4. Are there emerging best-practices around pre-deployment safety measurement methods? Around post-deployment measurement methods? (including the methods and metrics described above).

=

• For human drivers in the future - need to test abilities against and ADS equivalent

• This has been used to establish requirements for ADS - use humans as the standard

• Needs to be an excellent human driver - we need to define what this is - will help us establish ADS requirements/benchmarks

• RSS is a start 

• What is the coupling between pre and post deployment measures - need to establish this

• Third party certification - how does this play 

• What would we certify against?

• Need to build dynamic test tracks –

• Go/nogo concept - simulation on board of vehicle can help establish the health of an ADS both pre and post

• Need to compare human perception against capabilities of sensors - can break down to different components of the driving task

• For crowd sourcing input - participants need to have skin in the game to give valid input

• Look at each of the elements of the ISPO standards and apply to ADS needs

• Even though 262 is a process defined standard there are inputs we can provide along the way to augment it

• MUTCD as a reference

• Post deployment - CA DMV

• Run time verification is important
5. Should measurement of human response to ADS-equipped vehicle safety be a part of the calculation 

and, if so, in what way?

We will evaluate at L4

• Humans outside the vehicle? What response do we need to account for from them?

• so inattentive pedestrians need to be accounted for

• Needs to be consistency of intent communication - cars need to communicate effectively with all road 

users - predictable and consistant

• Difficult to establish measurement of how pedestrians, etc are responding to ADS vehicles

• Vehicles need to be predictable in their behavior - well above human driver

• Can you measure the consistency of the prediction of other road users

• Measure - throughput and efficiency of an ADS system - how efficiently are the systems achieving 

their transportation goals

• TTC as a measure is good.

• Need to investigate/study how people interact with ADS - this will inform how we develop 

standards/measures

• How well does a pedestrian understand the intent of ADS vehicles

• How do you allow rules to be violated to allow an ADS to move forward and not create gridlock, 

inefficiency, etc.

• What does this mean for enforcement ?
5. Should measurement of human response to ADS-equipped vehicle safety be a part of the calculation and, if so, in 

what way?

• Need to separate perception of safety to what is actually safe 

• How will pedestrians, etc adapt to the realities of ADS behavior. And accommodation to pedestrians by ADS. 

• A lot of the development of the behavior of a vehicle will establish non verbal communication norms

• From inside the vehicle: can the driver make executive decisions and take over as required. 

And visa versa

• Varies depending on level of automation

• More likely that ADS vehicles will have conventional seating layouts and with traditional 

controls. Need to think through how these controls can be deployed unintentionally

• Need to understand how the behavior of the ego vehicle impacts the other players in the 

environment

• Need protocol that ADS vehicle can use to communicate what its intention is to the passengers 

- needs to be adaptable to the individual

• We need to be very careful about human intervention - may do things that are less safe 

• Collision avoidance - Predictability - comfort and accessibility of the passengers these are the key measures that oems need to address
6. What are possible next steps?

• Look at exiting data, what are the high level ODDs that need to be addressed and develop high level requirements 

from these

• Scenarios involving crashes

• Scenarios that capture the needs of various ODDs

• Use these as the basis for establishing a methodology

• Think outside of the automotive domain - how can we bring in BKMs from other industries

• Need to develop an organization approach to developing the needed methodology

• Engineering and risk frameworks

• Outreach to state and local orgs to get input

• Need to establish a risk register - need to establish what is the min operational performance

• Best practices should be shared with State DOTs 

• Next steps for what? Widely adoptable safety methodology

• Assemble team of knowledgeable experts to start drafting framework

• Need to begin capturing in documents

• Need to evaluate what we have and roll into frameworks 

• Identify core scenarios that equate to basic driving skills and methods of testing capabilities in those 

scenarios

• Use risk analysis to identify representative set of edge cases outside of core scenarios to ensure capabilities 

beyond core in most important edge cases

• Develop objective test methods for core and edge scenarios

• How do we select amongst the infinite number of edge cases which ones are really important that we need 

to focus on
• For each safety issue, who is responsible for implementing/ handling who has the burden 

of proof for establishing compliance and approach

• Need a repository for the community

• We need to have basic goals that are acceptable to regulators and the public - and establish 

methodology/metrics based on these. May be a chicken and egg issue

• End goal is to establish a methodology that is understandable/explainable to the public

• Build trust in systems - need to communicate that we have full coverage - how do you exploit simulation and on and off road testing to achieve this

• What is the scope of the community wide work and who is going to execute it and who is 

going to lead it

• Need to build on what already exists and drive things to next level - take systems engineering approach

• Need to gather the key scenarios that are essential to establish reasonable safety

• Need to agree on a standard set of tests

• What is needed to execute the tests - what infrastructure and funding is required

• Certification authority needs to be identified who can certify that a particular ADS vehicle is 

safe to deploy
6. What are possible next steps?

• We need to establish a methodology for safety that standards can be derived from by the 

standard bodies

• We need to establish metrics that we can use to drive the definition of a methodology - how do 

other industries establish metrics - what can we adopt

• Compare standards to legal requirements- what is the legal high bar - what are the needed 

liability standards

• How do we get more objective about establishing a methodology in a broadly community 

supported way

• Engage public to ask them what would make them feel safe - a contest

• How far do we have to drive things over the next 6 months to a year

• We can use what exists today and drive towards an agile framework for testing

• Establish metrics - we can do this in the short term

• A mix of metrics e.g.: collisions, rules of road violations, etc

• Bring human driver and law enforcement, first responders, school bus drivers etc. into the discussion

• Get candidate methodology(s) out to the public and media for feedback - get public into the loop ASAP

• What is the lowest common denominator that we all agree on and begin from 

this

• Need to define roles and responsibilities for the process we will embark upon