One year ago, we posted about the National Association of City
Officials's (NACTO) policy recommendations for autonomous
vehicles. NACTO focused on the projected infrastructure
requirements for autonomous vehicles. Now, the National League of
Cities (NLC) is weighing in that cities need to speed up their
efforts of preparing for autonomous cars.
In its
Autonomous Vehicles – A Policy Preparation Guide, NLC
pointed out several key areas of infrastructure development,
including two sometimes overlooked components – the broadband
needs of a mixed autonomous vehicle transportation system, and how
to handle the terabytes of data that will be created by autonomous
vehicle technologies. NLC recommended cities work hand-in-hand with
regional broadband providers to begin planning this technology now
in order to support the wireless needs of the future, which will
dwarf the needs of today. Cities will also need to budget for the
data processing, storage, and security of the
