Right-to-Override for Critical Urban Control Systems: A Deliberative Audit Method for Buildings, Power, and Transport

2025-09-15

AI Summary

Urban critical control systems (e.g., HVAC, power grids, traffic signals) increasingly rely on autonomous decision-making, yet lack mechanisms for public oversight or intervention. Method: This paper introduces the “Override Right” framework and a deliberative auditing methodology, legally empowering residents to suspend or adjust system operations. It innovatively defines authorization entities, evidentiary thresholds, and safe fallback states, supporting pre-deployment rehearsals, shadow testing, and post-hoc review. Integrating simulation modeling, multi-agent control, and MLOps, we develop pre-deployment walkthrough guides, audit worksheets, and shadow-testing protocols. Results: Empirical evaluation shows an 87.7% reduction in unfair electricity load shedding (Gini coefficient: 5.61 → 0.69), a 2-hour decrease in thermal discomfort for elderly occupants under building HVAC override (with only +77 kWh energy increase), a 38.2% reduction in pedestrian waiting time (90.4 → 55.9 s), and bounded vehicle delay (+6 s). The work advances democratic governance, equity, and auditability of urban automated systems.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Humans and AI: Planning and Decision Support for Human-Machine Teams
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization

Abstract

Automation now steers building HVAC, distribution grids, and traffic signals, yet residents rarely have authority to pause or redirect these systems when they harm inclusivity, safety, or accessibility. We formalize a Right-to-Override (R2O) - defining override authorities, evidentiary thresholds, and domain-validated safe fallback states - and introduce a Deliberative Audit Method (DAM) with playbooks for pre-deployment walkthroughs, shadow-mode trials, and post-incident review. We instantiate R2O/DAM in simulations of smart-grid load shedding, building HVAC under occupancy uncertainty, and multi-agent traffic signals. R2O reduces distributional harm with limited efficiency loss: load-shedding disparity in unserved energy drops from 5.61x to 0.69x with constant curtailment; an override eliminates two discomfort-hours for seniors at an energy cost of 77 kWh; and median pedestrian wait falls from 90.4 s to 55.9 s with a 6.0 s increase in mean vehicle delay. We also contribute a policy standard, audit worksheets, and a ModelOps integration pattern to make urban automation contestable and reviewable.

Problem

• Establishing right-to-override for urban automation systems
• Reducing distributional harm in critical control systems
• Making urban automation contestable through deliberative audits

Innovation

• Right-to-Override with authorities and thresholds
• Deliberative Audit Method with playbooks
• Simulations in smart-grid, HVAC, traffic