Two big steps need to be taken before Waymo can operate autonomous vehicles in Illinois:

The self-driving taxi company is deploying about 10 vehicles in Chicago to start mapping the city’s streets — thus “laying the early groundwork” for future operations here — Waymo said Wednesday. 

But for now, the cars will be driven by people. State officials say legislative change is likely needed to give the green light to self-driving cars in Illinois, and Waymo’s Chicago soft launch comes as a battle over the issue is heating up in Springfield…

The mayor’s office confirmed Waymo had notified the city it would be operating here “in order to map streets formations, record geographical data, and better understand driving conditions.” The company assured the city it would not deploy autonomous vehicles in Chicago yet, the mayor’s office said….

Though several legislative attempts last year went nowhere, state lawmakers have filed at least three bills related to autonomous vehicle regulation since January…

I was aware of the need for a regulatory framework. Rules need to be established. Liability needs to be defined. Political negotiations or compromises need to take place. There are regulations from other places can provide direction but there may also be Illinois or Chicago specific concerns.

I was more surprised to hear about the mapping needs. What additional information does Waymo need compared to what is already available? What extra details will be captured? How much information can the mapping gather? How much data does the typical Waymo vehicle have access to while moving around the streets of Chicago?

There are a lot of roadways in Chicago. Driving them all would take less time than running them all. But it will still take some time. Will the mapping be done before the legislative or regulatory activity finishes? Are there multiple waves of data collection?

The article provides no possible dates of when action related to this will finish. Perhaps Chicago will have its driverless cars in a year or a few years. When that happens, it will be with massive amounts of mapping data and clear state (and local?) guidelines.