Report (PDF) | Responses from Automakers (PDF) | Letter to NHTSA (PDF)

Washington (March 31, 2026) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today published a report, Remote Backseat Operators: Revealing the Autonomous Vehicle Industry’s Reliance on Human Remote Assistance Operators, that reveals a stunning lack of transparency from autonomous vehicle (AV) companies around their use of Remote Assistance Operators (RAOs). Although the exact RAO role and performance vary by manufacturer, RAOs intervene when an AV confronts an uncertain or dangerous driving condition or situation. Senator Markey's investigation, which he launched in February, exposed a patchwork of safety practices across the industry, with significant variations in operator qualifications, response times, and overseas staffing.

As a result of the report, Senator Markey sent a letter to Jonathan Morrison, Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), urging NHTSA to investigate the AV industry’s RAO practices. Senator Markey also announced today that he is working on legislation to impose strong, enforceable regulations around the AV industry’s use of RAOs.

“Autonomous vehicle companies make big promises about the safety of their self-driving cars, but it turns out that human workers still play a critical role with this technology,” said Senator Markey. “My investigation revealed a wide range of concerning practices, from employees assisting vehicles from overseas to wide variations in communication lag times between vehicles and human operators. These operations demand urgent federal regulation. I’m calling on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to investigate, and I am working on legislation to impose strict guardrails on AV companies’ use of remote operators.”

Senator Markey continued, “Autonomous vehicle companies have long boasted they can eliminate road fatalities caused by human error. Now it is time they are honest about their technology’s reliance on human help.”

In February, Senator Markey sent letters to seven major autonomous vehicle companies – Aurora, May Mobility, Motional, Nuro, Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox – requesting detailed information about their remote assistance operations. The letters included 14 questions about each company’s remote assistance operation, including questions on the frequency of human intervention, location of their operations, qualifications for RAOs, latency of connection between vehicles and RAOs, and cybersecurity standards.

Senator Markey’s report is based on the companies’ answers to his questions and is the first detailed examination of the AV industry’s use of RAOs.

The report’s findings include:

1. Every AV company refused to disclose how frequently their RAOs intervene to help their self-driving cars.
2. Waymo is the only AV company that uses overseas RAOs.
3. Waymo is the only AV company in which a substantial share of its RAO workforce does not hold a U.S. driver’s license.
4. Latency between AVs and RAOs varied across companies, indicating that companies are making their own determinations about the latency threshold that constitutes a safety risk.
5. Although every company claimed that its autonomous driving systems would ignore dangerous advice from RAOs, a recent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) into an incident involving a Waymo AV casts doubt on this claim.

Senator Markey will soon be introducing legislation that responds to the safety gaps uncovered in his report. This legislation will establish much-needed standards around the location of RAOs, vehicle-to-RAO latency, RAO qualifications, and robust reporting requirements.

On February 3, 2026, Senator Markey opened an investigation into use of remote assistance by the seven major autonomous vehicle operators. At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing a day later – in response to questioning by Senator Markey – Waymo's Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña revealed that Waymo relies on remote assistance operators located overseas.

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