City Council
Report
City Council Meeting: November 15, 2022
Agenda Item: 10.B
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To: Mayor and City Council
From: Edward F King, Director, Mobility (DOT)
Subject: Zero Emission Delivery Zone Pilot Program Lessons Learned; Introduction of First Reading of an Ordinance amending Santa Monica Municipal Code Section 3.12.1055 to Authorize the Use of Remote-Controlled Robotic Personal Delivery Devices; Adoption of an Emergency Ordinance to Extend the Moratorium on the Operation of Autonomous Robotic Delivery Devices through January 30, 2023, and Authorize the City Manager to Negotiate and Execute a Contract Extension with Automotus to continue Curb Management Services
Recommended Action
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1. Introduce for first reading an ordinance amending Santa Monica Municipal Code Section 3.12.1055 to authorize the operation of remote-controlled personal delivery devices (PDDs) and prohibit the operation of autonomous delivery devices; and
2. Adopt an emergency ordinance extending the moratorium prohibiting the operation of autonomous delivery devices through January 30, 2023;
3. Adopt a finding of Exemption pursuant to 15061(b)(3) (Common Sense Exemption) and 15301 (Existing Facilities) of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines; and
4. Authorize the City Manager to execute a second modification to the agreement with Automotus to extend an existing license agreement and software as a service (SaaS) agreement through December 31, 2024, to allow for continued study of curb management via Automotus curbside cameras. There are no costs associated with this agreement.
Summary
The City of Santa Monica, in partnership with the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), launched the Zero Emission Delivery Zone (ZEDZ) pilot program in February 2021. This pilot, which will be ending in December 2022, aims to reduce emissions from 2 of 12
delivery vehicles by encouraging the use of zero-emission light- and medium-duty vehicles for deliveries in Downtown Santa Monica and Ocean Park. Electric cargo vans and low-speed electric shuttles, e-scooters and cargo bikes, and remote-controlled personal delivery devices (PDDs) have been among the delivery technologies tested as part of the pilot.
The City has benefited from this pilot in multiple ways. City staff has gained actionable knowledge of the incentive structures that motivate sustainable last-mile delivery companies, the delivery companies themselves have been given resources to develop and expand their operations, new delivery technology has been tested and brought under City regulation, and the City has begun gathering and processing curb data that promises to facilitate safe, more comfortable, and prosperous streets.
To maintain and extend these benefits, staff have three recommendations.
1. The ZEDZ pilot has provided for official regulation of PDDs, coinciding with a moratorium on fully autonomous sidewalk delivery devices. With both this moratorium and the pilot phase of PDDs coming to an end on December 31, 2022, staff recommends adopting the attached ordinance to replace the existing moratorium on fully autonomous sidewalk delivery devices with an indefinite prohibition, and to codify regulations on the operation of human-piloted PDDs.
2. Since the above ordinance would not have its second reading until December 6, and therefore its 30-day window to take effect would extend past the existing moratorium’s end date of December 31, 2022, staff recommends adopting an emergency ordinance that extends this moratorium through January 31, 2022.
3. As part of the pilot, the City entered into a license agreement and a Software as a Service (SaaS) agreement with Automotus to authorize the installation of video cameras on streetlight poles to monitor the use of ZEDZ loading spaces and share the resulting curbside data with City staff at zero cost to the city. As with PDD regulations, the license and SaaS agreements with Automotus will expire on December 31, 2022, unless extended. Staff recommends this extension to facilitate the productive use of curb data going forward, and to provide data to an ongoing study of sustainable last-mile delivery being conducted by the United 3 of 12
States Department of Energy in conjunction with LACI, and the cities of Santa Monica, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh.
Background
Over the last decade, Santa Monica has established itself as a leader in advancing sustainability efforts and particularly in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In April 2020, the City of Santa Monica partnered with LACI to be the host community for the ZEDZ pilot program. This pilot program was designed by the Transportation Electrification Partnership (TEP), a collaborative public/private membership organization of which Santa Monica is a member. The goal of the pilot program is to create a scalable model for promoting the electrification of light- and medium-sized parcel deliveries in urban areas and to test various zero-emission delivery technologies and supporting infrastructure. This mission aligns with the City’s goals to reduce pollution and congestion from the transportation sector and to reduce GHG emissions more broadly, as outlined in the City’s EV Action Plan (2017) and Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (2019).
The ZEDZ focus geography is a one-square-mile area encompassing Downtown Santa Monica, Main Street, and the Ocean Park neighborhood. In administering the program, LACI and the City have partnered with thirteen companies across the delivery, technology, and data analytics sectors to evaluate a wide range of urban delivery solutions in the ZEDZ area, including small and large electric vans/trucks, an EV truck rental platform, e-cargo bikes, e-scooters, and curb management technologies. The anticipated outcomes of the ZEDZ pilot program were:
• To Provide Local Benefits – The ZEDZ has aimed to support local businesses by making it easier for them to send and receive goods. It has also aimed to reduce congestion and emissions and to improve safety issues like double parking, blocked bike lanes, and illegal vehicle maneuvers through better curb management around practices.
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• To Define Policy – Through a better understanding of sustainable delivery practices and curbside behavior, the ZEDZ has sought to inform regulations and policy around the adoption of sustainable delivery technology and operations by private partners and the improvement of curbside management by the City. • To Demonstrate Replicability/Scalability – The ZEDZ seeks to provide a framework for other cities and companies to follow in advancing new delivery systems and technologies to make urban freight delivery more sustainable.
The ZEDZ has also assisted the City in adopting the nascent technology of remotecontrol personal delivery devices (PDDs). PDDs began operation in Santa Monica in the summer of 2020. At the time, nothing in the City code explicitly regulated these types of devices. To better understand the opportunities and challenges of PDDs and to begin testing a regulatory framework for their operation, the City Council directed staff on October 27, 2020 (Attachments A and C) to include PDDs as technology to be tested in the pilot program. At the same time, Council placed a moratorium on autonomously operated delivery devices, requiring a human operator to be always in control of PDDs due to safety concerns. The moratorium and LACI’s oversight of human-operated PDDs will expire on December 31, 2022.
The pilot program has included eleven EV-only curbside loading zones in Downtown Santa Monica and Main Street that provide priority curb access to electric vehicles, as well as three “control” loading zones with no priority EV access but for which curb data was also collected. On February 9, 2021 (Attachment B), Council authorized the City to enter into license and SaaS agreements with Los Angeles-based company Automotus to monitor utilization/vehicle activity around the zones to better understand the growing demand for the curbside, improve safety, reduce behaviors like double parking and blocking bike lanes, and make the curb work efficiently for as many users as possible.
The ZEDZ pilot program officially launched in January 2021. After a slow start due to the pandemic, staff updated the Council on the progress of the pilot on September 14, 2021 (Attachment D). At that meeting, Council authorized a 12-month extension of the 5 of 12
program from its initial conclusion date of December 31, 2021. This included an extension of the autonomous PDD moratorium and the license and SaaS agreements with Automotus, thus allowing more time to better understand delivery practices and curbside behavior and to better prepare for the next phase of PDD regulation.
Past Council Actions
Meeting Date Description
10/27/20
(Attachment A)
Adopted Emergency Ordinance to establish a moratorium on autonomous delivery vehicles
2/9/2021
(Attachment B)
Authorized the City Manager to execute a license agreement with Automotus Corporation
4/13/21
(Attachment C)
Requested to amend Emergency Ordinance to allow remotely controlled delivery vehicles to operate citywide
9/14/2021
(Attachment D)
Authorized the City Manager to execute an amendment to the MOU between LACI and the City to extend the ZEDZ through December 31, 2022
Discussion
The ZEDZ pilot program will officially end on December 31, 2022, when the memorandum of understanding between the City and LACI expires. The program has provided an opportunity for several delivery and logistics companies to establish the foundations and partnerships needed to advance zero-emission delivery solutions. It has also provided the City insight into how delivery operations respond to different incentives, how local businesses can benefit through improved delivery operations, and how the City can gather curbside data to improve curb-related policy and enforcement.
LACI will complete a summary report in early 2023 that will provide a fuller assessment of program outcomes and lessons learned and will disseminate these widely to further expand EV adoption and sustainable practice within the delivery sector. In the meantime, City staff have drawn a set of preliminary findings from the pilot, based on 18 months of operations, a review of program data, and interviews with delivery and technology program partners.
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Micromobility Food and Parcel Delivery
This aspect of the ZEDZ included partnerships with last-mile freight delivery firms that used a host of sustainable transportation modes, ranging from cargo e-bikes to light electric trucks to deliver parcels to businesses and residents. It also included the EV delivery operations of a big box retailer, as well as the PDDs, which made deliveries from local businesses (primarily restaurants) to nearby City residents. Staff has drawn the following conclusions from this portion of the pilot:
• Micromobility (e.g., e-cargo bike) deliverers found Santa Monica’s infrastructure to be conducive to operations throughout the ZEDZ area. • Operators were divided over the importance of direct logistical support from LACI and the City. Some identified space for delivery microhubs and staging areas to be key areas for potential support. Others considered this the primary purview of logistics firms and instead argued that the City could better facilitate green delivery through other policy levers, such as bolstered delivery requirements and additional permissions for lightweight delivery vehicles. • In the absence of enforcement, operators did not find EV-only loading zones to be a major incentive. City staff is not currently authorized to enforce EV-only zones; a proposed ordinance slated to go before Council in January 2023 would, among other things, allow for such enforcement. They did voice approval for the role of these zones as signaling mechanisms, however, and advocated for their wider deployment.
• PDDs imposed little burden on the public, staying out of the public right-of-way when not in use, yielding to pedestrians when conducting deliveries, and generating few incidents.
• The overall volume of operations was modest in the context of all City transport, on the order of approximately 1,000 deliveries per month for last-mile parcel deliveries, as well as another 1,000 deliveries per month for PDDs. The result is still a significant displacement of otherwise polluting delivery vehicles 7 of 12
Curb Management
Curb functions once limited to parking, loading, and public transit have expanded to include shared mobility zones, parklets, bike lanes, shuttles, and rideshare pickup and drop-off, among other uses. Commercial loading needs have also drastically changed in recent years with an increase in deliveries caused by online shopping and app-based food delivery. The pilot addressed this growing area of concern through the implementation of 11 EV-only loading zones, as well as through a partnership with Automotus to gather and analyze data surrounding the use of these zones. From these activities, staff has drawn the following conclusions:
• As mentioned above, unenforced EV-only zones provided little direct incentive for delivery operations to change vehicle types. As such, relatively little EV use could be detected in these zones.
• City staff gained insight and valuable experience in the logistical hurdles of deploying curbside camera technology, understanding the types of data that it can provide, and understanding how those data can feed into refined curbside policy and enforcement.
• Staff and research partners have developed an initial platform from which further study of curb improvements can be launched, both concerning the technology needed for such study, as well as how a more effective study could be designed.
Through camera-based curbside data collection, City staff can address broader issues of roadway safety and comfort, making commercial corridors more inviting spaces for active transportation and reducing congestion. In an example of how these data might be applied, staff can identify specific times and locations where double-parking infractions are especially common, which would then allow them to identify the root causes of these hazards and better address them through policy, infrastructure, or targeted enforcement. Figure 1 shows the total number of double-parking incidents from July through August 2022 by hour of day for weekdays and weekends across six Automotus camera locations along Main Street. These findings, while preliminary, point toward more effective future approaches to curb management. 8 of 12
Figure 1: Camera-identified double-parking incidents in ZEDZ locations 9 of 12
Next Steps
PDD Ordinance
Throughout the ZEDZ pilot program, remote-controlled PDDs have offered a net benefit to Santa Monica residents and businesses, providing efficient and sustainable delivery, and imposing little cost to the public. As such, staff recommends that Council approve the attached ordinance, which would 1) allow remote-controlled PDDs to continue operations through the City; 2) replace the existing moratorium on fully autonomous PDDs with an indefinite prohibition, given the concern over safety and the vetting of devices; and 3) build on existing regulations to ensure safe and orderly PDD operations. (One important point to note concerning the prohibition of autonomous PDDs: this prohibition would apply only to vehicles on City sidewalks; autonomous vehicles in the roadway are subject to state regulation and would not be impacted.) Table 1 provides a summary of terms in the ordinance aimed at this last goal.
Table 1: Summary of PDD Ordinance Terms
Ordinance Category Requirements
Vehicle Form • Must have lights and a high-visibility flag for safety • Height, width, and weight maximums to avoid sidewalk
hazards and obstruction
• Must have a unique identifier and 24/7 contact
information legibly displayed on the PDD
Operations • No fully autonomous delivery
• Must obey all traffic laws and yield to pedestrians
• Must not be stored, idled, or roving in the public right-ofway when not on a delivery • Must not exceed 5 mph
• Must report any incidents to City within 24 hours
• Must maintain appropriate insurance and indemnification • Must transmit aggregated data reports to City for
planning and regulation purposes
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Automotus Cameras
Given the substantial benefits of camera-based curbside behavior data for delivery operations and otherwise, staff recommends that the council approve extensions of the SaaS and license agreements with Automotus through December 31, 2024. This extension will provide staff with the opportunity to continue working with curb data that has many actionable applications for making City streets safe, more inviting, and more supportive of the community. It will further provide staff with the experience needed to strategize the broader implementation of useful curbside technology and facilitate the ongoing study of sustainable curb management as part of the Department of Energy grant. It will also continue the privacy protections enshrined in the current agreement with Automotus, protecting personally identifying information, and preventing the resale or other misuse of community data. Specifically, video from Automotus cameras will not be permanently stored, all personally identifiable information will be scrubbed from any data before it is saved, and the City will retain ownership of all data. Additionally, while information from the cameras may help inform City enforcement of the curb, video will not be directly accessible by the Santa Monica Police Department.
Environmental Impact Statement
CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, applies only to projects that have the potential to cause a significant effect on the environment. A project is not subject to CEQA under CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3) “where it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment.” The proposed ordinance to change the regulation of PDDs from a pilot permit model operating under the ZEDZ pilot program to a permanent program would not result in a physical environmental effect on the environment.
In addition, Section 15301 exempts Class 1 projects from CEQA, which include the “operation, repair, maintenance, permitting, leasing, licensing, or minor alteration of existing public or private structures [or] facilities, including streets, sidewalks, bicycle, and pedestrian trails, and similar facilities.” The project consists of the regulation of shared mobility devices within the public right of way because it consists of alternate operation (and permitting) of public streets, sidewalks, and similar facilities that do not 11 of 12
create additional automobile lanes. The PDDs are required to be operated within existing public streets and would not necessitate the construction of new vehicle travel lanes for operation. Therefore, the project qualifies as a Class 1 exemption.
Section 15308 also provides an exemption for Class 8 projects, which include actions taken by regulatory agencies, as authorized by state or local ordinance, to assure the maintenance, restoration, enhancement, or protection of the environment where the regulatory process involves procedures for the protection of the environment. The proposed ordinance is intended to regulate personal delivery devices for the protection of the environment, including people. Therefore, the proposed project does not have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment and is categorically exempt from CEQA review under CEQA Guideline section 15308.
Financial Impacts and Budget Actions
There is no immediate financial impact or budget action necessary because of the recommended actions. Staff will return to Council as part of the biennial budget process if specific budget actions are required in the future.
Prepared By: Trevor Thomas, Transportation Planning Associate Approved Forwarded to Council
Attachments:
A. 3.23 RemotelyControlledPDDOrdinance 11.15.2022 FINAL B. 3.23_EmergencyOrdinance
ExtendingAutonomousDeliveryVehicleMoratorium_11.15.2022 Final C. Written Comment
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D. PowerPoint Presentation