This week’s “Around the Commercial Drone Industry” news round-up looks at a plan to track New York City buses with drones, how Maine hunters can – and cannot – use uncrewed systems, and a Michigan court case concerning banned drone flights.

Drone Ban Court Case in Michigan

As a new court case in Michigan illustrates, laws around drone flight authorizations continue to be a contentious issue for our industry. According to a report in Dronelife, the Michigan Court of Claims will hold a hearing on December 17 that “could determine whether the University of Michigan has the right to ban drone flights over all its properties.” The case, Michigan Coalition of Drone Operators vs. the Regents of the University of Michigan, concerns a university ordinance banning drone overflights. The coalition, which has won cases against similar drone flight bans in certain Michigan counties, say the school’s ordinance “violates the state’s drone regulation pre-emption law as well as federal law that gives the FAA sole authority to regulate the nation’s airspace.” For its part, the university’s regents argue that their ban is not bound by precedent, “because, unlike those counties, the university is not a subdivision of the state.” Stay tuned.

How Can Hunters Use Uncrewed Systems?

Hunters in the state of Maine who wish to use uncrewed systems may face some confusion around state laws. An article in the Piscataquis Observer explained that “Maine’s laws have holes that leave gray areas wide open to interpretation” around issues such as “from the legality of using drones to recover dead animals to the ethics of using them at all.” At present, according to the piece, “The law clearly states that it is illegal to hunt with a drone. That means that you cannot use a drone to find an animal and then go kill that particular one.” However, “if you wound an animal and locate it with a drone, you are considered hunting with a drone and are subject to as much as $500 in fines if you get caught.” Hunters have called for clarity around Maine’s laws.

Drones to Track NYC Buses

UASVision reports that New York City’s transit authority is looking to “potentially deploy drones as eyes in the sky that would provide additional insights on its fleet of close to 6,000 buses.” The article states that the “New York City Transit’s Department of Buses is reaching out to qualified vendors for ways to ‘manage and oversee its bus operations more effectively’ through an aerial vehicle program that would be used within bus depots, at outdoor depot parking lots and along bus service routes.” The proposed plan has been met with skepticism from transit workers and union leaders who have called the idea “suspicious” and believe the plan would be less effective than the current monitoring program, which uses service line dispatchers to “monitor bus lines, keep track of the vehicles in the yards and make sure all of them ‘are safe for public service.’”