Uber Resumes Autonomous Vehicle Tests in Pittsburgh

Uber is resuming autonomous vehicle tests in an area near downtown Pittsburgh.

The restart Thursday comes just over nine months after one of its autonomous cars struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. Testing has been suspended since the accident in March.

The ride-hailing company received permission to resume testing from the Pennsylvania Transportation Department on Monday. It plans to start with a few cars in an area near its offices.

Uber has pledged to have two human backup drivers and take other safety precautions in each Volvo SUV. It also will stay in an area where speed limits on most roads are 25 mph.

Uber also plans to resume human-controlled tests in Toronto and San Francisco. It has no immediate plan to resume tests in Arizona.

The company says its SUVs will operate only during daylight hours on weekdays and not in inclement weather.

It also has activated Volvo's automatic emergency braking system as a backup to its self-driving controls.

Company officials have acknowledged they have a long way to go to regain public trust after crash that killed Elaine Herzberg, 49, as she crossed a darkened Arizona road outside the lines of a crosswalk.

Police said Uber's backup driver in the autonomous Volvo SUV in Arizona was streaming the television show "The Voice" on her phone and looking downward before the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board said the autonomous driving system on the Volvo spotted Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her, but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled. A Volvo emergency braking system also had been turned off.

Among the other precautions, San Francisco-based Uber will keep the autonomous vehicle system engaged at all times and will activate Volvo's automatic emergency braking system as a backup.

In addition, Uber is requiring more technical training and expertise of employees sitting behind the wheel of the vehicles, according to a 70-page safety report the company released last month.

Pennsylvania law doesn't allow testing of autonomous vehicles without human backup drivers. Google's Waymo has carried passengers without human drivers in the Phoenix area, but recently backed off of that and is only ferrying passengers with human backups. General Motors' Cruise Automation expects to carry passengers without human backups next year.

Later Uber will pursue bringing its self-driving cars back to public roads in Arizona, California and Toronto, Ontario, its other test sites. Arizona suspended the company's permission to test after the crash.