Celebrating excellence in automated mobility, in the UK and internationally, entries are open now for the inaugural Self-driving Industry Awards.
Presented by Cars of the Future, the Self-driving Industry Awards 2023 cover all aspects of this exciting and fast-growing ecosystem.
From impressive engineering and design developments, to essential work in areas such as insurance and public trust, peer recognition plays an important part, with all entrants nominating a self-driving Person of the Year and Vehicle of the Year.
A Self-driving Industry Awards spokesperson said: “If you’ve made a telling contribution to self-driving – launched the world’s best robotaxi or last-mile delivery robot, made a technological leap, or provided incredible thought leadership – then you should be entering these awards.”
The deadline for entries is now 5pm UK-time on Monday 23 October 2023, with all shortlisted candidates receiving an invitation to the Awards ceremony (in the UK on Friday 17 November).
We were delighted to be invited to the Self-Driving All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) workshop on “Safety and Public Perception” at the House of Commons on Monday (18 Sep 2023).
Chaired by Ben Everitt, MP for self-driving hotspot Milton Keynes North, ably assisted by Lord Borwick, former long-serving chief exec of London taxi manufacturer, Manganese Bronze, it invited expert opinions on important questions including:
What does a robust and credible safety framework for self-driving vehicles look like?
What are the implications of AI safety policy for the self-driving vehicle sector?
How will the roll-out of self-driving vehicles affect pedestrians and other road users?
What can the industry do to improve public understanding of self-driving vehicles?
How can Government support the industry to highlight the benefits of self-driving vehicles?
Self-Driving APPG parliamentarians: Ben Everitt MP and Lord (Jamie) Borwick
Self-driving experts
For this second workshop (the first, on “Economy and Environment”, having taken place the previous week), the participants included many names familiar to Cars of the Future readers: Doug Jenkins of AXA, Jessica Uguccioni of the Law Commission and CCAV,Nick Fleming of BSI, Professor Siddartha Khastgir of the University of Warwick, Steve Gooding of the RAC Foundation, Mark Cracknell of Zenzic, and Dr Nick Reed of Reed Mobility, along with representatives from Wayve, Burges Salmon, WSP, National Highways, Waymo and Hanbury Strategy.
Emphasising that the four leading causes of road traffic accidents (RTAs) are driver error, reckless behaviour, disobeying traffic laws and driver impairment, it set out to explore public perceptions around safety, and asked how self-driving can reduce casualties as part of a wider smart transport system.
Without wishing to pre-empt the findings, which will inform an independent policy report, three interesting opinions were: 1) that people will quickly become bored with the protest action of ‘coning’, 2) that more ‘friendly-looking’ vehicle design would be helpful, and 3) that legislation to clarify liability would be very welcome – perhaps in the next King’s Speech?
Please note, the APPG’s deadline for written evidence on the economic, environmental and safety benefits of self-driving vehicles is this Friday (22nd Sep 2023).
A new industry report by Cambridge-based independent market research provider, IDTechEx, claims that “Autonomous vehicles will soon be safer than humans, some already are”.
Dr James Jeffs, Senior Technology Analyst at IDTechEx.
Self-driving in California
Predicting rapid growth in the number of cities that will offer robotaxi services in the next few years, it highlights the issue of ‘coning’ in San Francisco – where protestors attempt to render self-driving cars inoperable by placing a traffic cone on the bonnet.
There are obvious parallels with the recent attacks on Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) cameras in London.
The most interesting element of the research, however, is the key metric that IDTechEx uses to monitor autonomous vehicle safety: miles per disengagement.
First, it sets out the testing miles submitted by the top testing companies – including Waymo, Cruise, Pony AI, Zoox and Nuro – in California between 2015 and 2022.
IDTechEx: self-driving testing miles in California
It then analyses the miles per disengagement, measuring how frequently the autonomous vehicle safety driver needs to intervene with the autonomous system.
In 2022, Cruise led when it came to disengagement. During its 863,000 miles of testing, safety drivers only needed to intervene nine times. What’s more, IDTechEx concluded that four of these nine disengagements were caused by the poor performance of other nearby drivers.
The study then applies a slightly spurious method – assuming that each disengagement would lead to a collision… and comparing this to the average US human driver performance of approx. 200,000 miles between collisions – in order to justify the ‘some AVs are already better than humans’ claim.
It isn’t an exact science, but the important point stands. Self-driving cars are getting safer year-on-year.
New ISO 34503:2023 international standard on safe self-driving trials.
Experts from the UK have been instrumental in developing the very first international standard for the safe operation of self-driving vehicles, the new ISO 34503:2023.
Based on BSI PAS 1883, developed by the UK National Standards Body, it uses the Operational Design Domain (ODD) concept championed by Professor Siddartha Khastgir, of WMG at the University of Warwick.
As covered extensively on Cars of the Future, the ODD is basically a definition of where a self-driving vehicle is going to operate.
Self-driving standard
The new ISO standard (full title: Road Vehicles — Test scenarios for automated driving systems — Specification for operational design domain) provides specifications for three key categories:
Scenery elements: non-movable elements e.g. roads, bridges, traffic lights
Environment conditions: weather and other atmospheric conditions
Dynamic elements: all movable objects and actors
The ISO website explains that the document is mainly applicable to level 3 and level 4 automated driving systems (ADS). It is primarily intended to be used by organisations conducting trials, testing and commercial deployment, and may also be of interest to insurers, regulators, service providers, national, local and regional governments.
Professor Khastgir praised the work of partners from around the world, including the US, Germany, Japan, China, France, Austria, Canada, Israel, Sweden, Finland, South Korea and Australia.
“Successful standardisation efforts are only possible with true international collaboration,” he said. “I am grateful to experts from various countries worldwide who have engaged and contributed actively to this standard.”
ISO members working on safe self-driving, 2023
Guiding safe self-driving
Nick Fleming, Associate Director of Transport and Mobility at BSI, said: “It’s exciting to see the launch of this new international standard, given the potential benefits that can be realised by testing automated vehicles so they can operate safely on our roads.
“This new ISO standard has been inspired by the UK document, BSI PAS 1883:2020, the first taxonomy for ODDs developed in conjunction with UK experts and the government’s Centre for Connected and Automated Vehicles.
“BSI would like to thank Professor Khastgir for his effort in helping to lead this work at the international level which, along with PAS 1883, shows the leadership the UK is having in the development of global standardisation for self-driving vehicles.”
Sarah Gates, Director of Public Policy at Wayve, added: “The concept of ODDs is the basis of deploying self-driving vehicles safely. A common way of describing ODDs across industry is therefore vital for creating the highest safety standards, bolstering public trust and supporting the regulatory frameworks required to commercially deploy self-driving technology on a global scale.”
This wider adoption of the ODD is a big win for UK thought leadership, with US-based self-driving expert, Philip Koopman, author of the book “How Safe Is Safe Enough?”, recently describing us as “the adults in the room” when it comes to regulation.
DfT and CCAV publish two new reports on self-driving public engagement
In summer 2023, The Department for Transport (DfT) and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) published two new reports on The Great Self-Driving Exploration.
Last year, in partnership with Thinks Insight & Strategy, University College London (UCL) and Aurrigo, they held a series of large-scale public engagement events in areas of the country where there had previously been little or no engagement with self-driving vehicles.
DfT Great Self-Driving Exploration report – citizen view of self-driving technology, 2023
Self-driving citizen view
The first report, “A citizen view of self-driving technology in future transport systems”, largely analysed the responses from a “high exposure audience” of 177 participants, who took part in a three-week programme of “deliberative engagement”, including pre- and post-ride surveys.
Further feedback came from “medium exposure” and “low exposure” audiences, of 450 and 250 participants respectively.
In workshops, the high exposure participants were shown educational videos on various aspects of self-driving. They featured, among others, Rebecca Posner of CCAV, Camilla Fowler of Oxbotica (now Oxa), Siddartha Khastgir of WMG, Jessica Uguccioni of the Law Commission, Dr Nick Reed of Reed Mobility, Brian Matthews of Milton Keynes Council, Steve Gooding of the RAC Foundation, Tom Cohen of the University of Westminster, David Sharp of Ocado, Martin Griffiths of Stagecoach Group, Colin Robertson of Alexander Dennis, Jim Hutchinson of Fusion Processing, and Waymo – familiar names to regular Cars of the Future readers.
The participants were then asked to design an advert to describe self-driving vehicles (SDVs) to the public. As an aside, being pedants, we note a battle with software-defined vehicles for the SDV acronym. Anyway…
The report found: “Given the generally positive attitude towards SDVs [self-driving vehicles], the information campaigns and adverts designed by participants overwhelmingly focused on communicating the potential benefits of introducing SDVs rather than any of their concerns.
“Broadly speaking, to effectively improve awareness of SDVs it was seen as necessary to communicate their advantages over and above traditional human-driven vehicles.
“Using information campaigns and adverts to normalise the concept of SDVs, either as privately owned vehicles or as part of shared or public transport provision, was considered important.”
Familiarity with self-driving increased significantly among the high exposure participants, with 68% saying they knew ‘a fair amount’ by the end of the research, compared to just 11% at the outset.
In particular, these participants felt they had a better understanding of the ‘rules’ for using self-driving vehicles. However, there were still areas of potential confusion, such as what level of autonomy is currently legal on UK roads.
DfT Great Self-Driving Exploration report – wordcloud
On “medium to high levels of Engagement, Excitement and Interest”, that participants “have a degree of affinity with the task and tended to have more positive emotional responses to the technology.”
On “lower scores for Focus, Stress and Relaxation”, that participants “were relatively comfortable with the experience despite its novelty”.
And “as participants become more familiar with the technology the more immediate and emotional reactions, both positive or negative subside”.
Interestingly, males tended to show higher levels of ‘Excitement’ than females when on the shuttle, while the opposite was seen for the pod.
The report concluded: “These differences will have implications on both engineering and policy choices to help mitigate certain emotional states if self-driving vehicles become more widespread. The changes in emotional state observed throughout a journey also suggest the value of providing members of the public with the opportunity to trial the technology.”
Together, these two reports provide important insights into the expectations of the UK public in relation to self-driving – a valuable contribution to this fast-growing ecosystem.
43 British companies win CCAV funding for self-driving supply chain projects.
On 4 September 2023, the UK government announced the recipients of £50m in funding “to cement the UK as the best location in the world to manufacture”. The winners included several major self-driving projects.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said: “From farm tractors fuelled by hydrogen to rapid-charge first responder motorcycles, these projects receiving funding today show we are not short of innovators in this country.
“By supporting growth in the industries of the future, including through better regulation, we are delivering on our plan to get the economy growing and make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business.”
Self-driving winners
In addition to 12 mainly clean fuel-related projects to be funded via the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) announced £18.5m in joint government and industry funding for 13 new self-driving projects.
Designed to address critical technology gaps, enhance safety and security, improve performance and reliability, and create scalable opportunities both domestically and globally, these connected and automated mobility (CAM) supply chain projects will be delivered in partnership with Zenzic and Innovate UK.
The winning projects are, in alphabetical order:
· AIM-DBW
· Autonomous Cargo
· CERTUS
· DeepSafe
· DriveSafeAI
· Driven By Sound
· evolvAD
· High-Performance Imaging Radar (HPIR)
· Photonic Inertial Sensors for Automotive (PISA)
· Sim4CAMSens
· StreetCAV
· Systems for Autonomy in Fail Operational Environments (SAFE)
Decarbonisation and Technology Minister, Jesse Norman MP, commented: “Self-driving vehicles have the potential to transform how we get around, making journeys safer, more convenient and more accessible while also creating skilled jobs. These grant winners underline how the UK is at the cutting edge in developing automated technologies that are not only innovative but have safety at their heart.”
Meanwhile, Minister for Industry and Economic Security, Nusrat Ghani MP, visited Wayve, one of the 43 British companies involved, yesterday (5 September). “The automotive industry will go through a self-drive revolution = huge economic growth & new jobs,” she said on Twitter (X). “We are supporting AI tech firms in leading the way.”
The automotive industry will go through a self-drive revolution = huge economic growth & new jobs. We are supporting 🇬🇧 AI tech firms in leading the way with over £50m @biztradegovuk funding for autonomous projects. Great to visit @wayve_ai & see 🇬🇧 tech in action🤝 pic.twitter.com/7cEIRUwuyj
The headline facts and figures for each winning project are as follows:
AIM-DBW – lead partner Aim Technologies, with TRL – to deliver a universal drive-by-wire system to enable the automation of throttle, steering, braking and gears. Grant: £400,000.
Autonomous Cargo – lead partner Aurrigo, with UPS – to create a self-driving 7.5 tonne dolly for airside cargo movements, along with a simulation tool. Grant: £480,000.
Certus – lead partners Horiba Mira, with Coventry University, Connected Places Catapult, Polestar Automotive UK, and IPG Automotive UK – to provide a verification and validation (V&V) test requirements toolset for an automated driving system (ADS). Grant: £1.5m.
DeepSafe – lead partner Drisk.ai, with Imperial College London, Claytex Services, DG Cities, and rFpro – to support the V&V of ADSs through industry-critical data and a next-generation simulation toolchain. Grant: £2m.
DriveSafeAI – lead partner Wayve Technologies, with University of Warwick – to develop a safety assurance framework for the safe deployment of AI in self-driving technology across all driving domains. Grant: £1.9m
Driven By Sound – lead partner Calyo, with Baro Vehicles – is a collaborative initiative to create a robust navigation system for automated vehicles, with a particular emphasis on adverse weather handling. Grant: £910,000.
evolvAD – lead partner Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK, with TRL, Humanising Autonomy, Connected Places Catapult, and SBD Automotive – to develop an AV capable of safely driving in residential, urban and rural environments. Grant: £2.3m.
High-Performance Imaging Radar (HPIR) – lead partner Aptcore, with Garfield Microelectronics, Plextek Services, and Cambridge Sensoriis – aims to develop a high-performance imaging radar specifically for AVs. Grant: £1.8m.
Photonic Inertial Sensors for Automotive (PISA) – lead partner Zero Point Motion, with WAE Technologies, University of the West of England, and the Royal Institute of Navigation – to leverage Micro Electromechanical Systems (MEMS), Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), and low-cost laser/detectors to develop advanced position and navigation sensors. Grant: £1.4m.
Sim4CAMSens – lead partner Claytex Services, with University of Warwick, National Physical Laboratory, Syselek (UK), Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, rFpro, Oxford RF Solutions, and Techworkshub – to enable accurate representation of ADS sensors in simulation. Grant: £2m.
StreetCAV – lead partner Smart City Consultancy, with Dell Corporation, Milton Keynes Borough Council, and Ohmio UK – will create a ‘plug-and-play’ roadside connectivity solution for self-driving shuttles, robots and drone-based services. Grant: £1.8m.
Systems for Autonomy in Fail Operational Environments (SAFE) – lead partner Streetdrone, with Alcon Components, University Of Surrey, and Chassis Autonomy – will develop a fail operational drive-by-wire technology platform to enable safe SAE Level 4 autonomy. Grant: £1.2m.
Torque Overlay Automated Steering Technology (TOAST) – lead partners Titan Motorsport & Automotive Engineering, with Alexander Dennis, and TRL – will develop a modular dual redundant steer-by-wire system for heavily automated and electric vehicles. Grant: £760,000.
Quick on the draw with a press release, Alex Kendall, CEO of Wayve, said: “Leveraging AI, we have the chance to bring the benefits of self-driving vehicles to everyone’s door. But first, securing trust in AI is paramount. DriveSafeAI will give the public and policymakers confidence in this technology, which has the potential to revolutionise transport.”
Wayve self-driving car, 2023
Professor Siddartha Khastgir, Head of Verification & Validation at WMG, added: “AI and particularly embodied AIs like self-driving vehicles is one of the biggest disruptors for society. Deploying this technology safely is essential.”
Congratulations to all, particularly TOAST for the best acronym, and we will follow all of these exciting projects with great interest.
Introducing the inaugural Self-driving Industry Awards…
Celebrating excellence in automated mobility, in the UK and internationally, entries are open now for the inaugural Self-driving Industry Awards.
Presented by Cars of the Future, the Self-driving Industry Awards 2023 cover all aspects of this exciting and fast-growing ecosystem.
From impressive engineering and design developments, to essential work in areas such as insurance and public trust, peer recognition plays an important part, with all entrants nominating a self-driving Person of the Year and Vehicle of the Year.
A Self-driving Industry Awards spokesperson said: “If you’ve made a telling contribution to self-driving – launched the world’s best robotaxi or last-mile delivery robot, made a technological leap, or provided incredible thought leadership – then you should be entering these awards.”
The deadline for entries is 5pm UK-time on Friday 29 September 2023, with all shortlisted candidates receiving an invitation to the Awards ceremony in November.
WMG at the University of Warwick, home of The National Automotive Innovation Centre, has reached for the sky (and sea) with ground-breaking research into safe automated land, air and marine mobility.
In early 2022, Professor Siddartha Khastgir, Head of Verification & Validation at WMG, reached out to experts in other automated transport sectors, to see if there were opportunities to learn from each other to unblock the safety challenges in the self-driving industry.
38 organisations got involved, including self-driving big-hitters Wayve, Oxa (formerly Oxbotica), Aurrigo, and Imperium Drive, along with a host of UK universities and regulatory bodies. All gave their time freely for this mission.
The result is the Cross-Domain Safety Assurance for Automated Transport Systems report, published in March 2023.
Self-driving insights: The Cross-Domain Safety Assurance for Automated Transport Systems report, March 2023.
“The economic potential of the global automated transport ecosystem is projected to reach over £750 billion by 2035, with a UK market share of approximately 6% representing £42 billion and creating up to 38,000 new jobs,” the report begins – breath-taking figures.
“However, safety remains the biggest challenge for commercialisation of automated transport systems (ATS). Safety and the corresponding perceived safety of ATS technology has a direct correlation with the development of trust and acceptance in the technology.”
Quite right, as Professor Khastgir knows better than perhaps anyone. Having started his career with Tata Motors in India (having taken part in the Formula Student engineering competition during his undergraduate days at IIT Kharagpur), he worked with OEMs in Germany for FEV, before doing a PhD in trust in automation and test methodologies for automated driving systems at WMG.
With in-depth knowledge of both the engineering challenges and the human factors, he has led and helped draft many of the UK and international standards around Operational Design Domains (ODDs). He’s also a member of the Department for Transport (DfT) Science Advisory Council and a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellow.
NK: How did this cross-industry self-driving initiative come about?
SK: “After my PhD, I established a team on verification and validation at WMG, looking at how to prove that self-driving cars are safe. We spent four or five years working on a methodology which would be scalable. At that time, we were still very car focused. The methodology we created is underpinned by the ODD concept and its definition.
“We started sharing the ODD concept with different players in the self-driving ecosystem – industry players and regulators. We had a lot of discussions with the DfT, the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA), the European Commission, and also industry. I was very humbled by the response, to the extent that our framework is actually in the EU automated driving legislation that was published last year.
“We felt that, because of the framework’s scalability, it could be translated into aviation and maritime autonomy. If you look at the ODD concept and detach it from self-driving cars, from a first principles level, it can work in other sectors. So, we started liaising with different stakeholders in automated marine and aviation.
“We took what we did in self-driving, abstracted it, and identified things that we thought would be similar and different. We then held an event in London, in March last year, where we presented it to stakeholders from all the sectors. It seemed to capture the imagination – everybody wanted to come on this journey with us. All along, we knew self-driving would also benefit from learning from aviation and maritime.
“Getting people from all these different domains into the same room – people willing to collaborate and with a genuine appetite to learn – is no mean feat, a big success for WMG.”
NK: Tell us about the report itself and the main findings…
SK: “We identified three areas that the safety assurance for autonomous solutions ecosystem really needs help with. The first was a safety framework and metrics, the second was virtual test environments (simulations), and the third was communicating safety. The last one in particular – societal acceptance of this technology – is underappreciated in most discussions.
“We urged all stakeholders – developers, manufacturers, fleet service providers, regulators and policymakers – to work together to demonstrate and communicate safety, rather than competing using safety as a selling point, a philosophy we are championing.
“We created three working parties and over the last year they’ve held 10 workshops, equating to over 200 person days of work. That led to the Cross-Domain Safety Assurance for Automated Transport Systems report, which we authored, capturing all the inputs from these workshops. We launched it in March this year, and it was very well received, not only in the UK, but internationally.
“We’ve had a lot of feedback and the next step is to implement the recommendations detailed in the executive summary, covering themes of evaluating safety and communicating safety. We have already started with the implementation phase. Some of the most interesting feedback was on communicating safety. People felt that this is not talked about enough. Communicating safety is a very important USP of the work we’re doing, considering safety more holistically, not just as an engineering subject.
“Both of these concepts – evaluating safety and communicating safety – remain true for land, aviation and maritime autonomy applications. But not everything is similar. For validation of your simulation, a classic difference is the qualifying thresholds between real-world and virtual world, which would be different for each sector. However, a lot of the processes and approaches used would be common, but those kinds of subtleties are important.”
NK: How will the report’s recommendations be implemented?
SK: “At the report launch event, we had the chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee, Greg Clark, the chair of the Transport Select Committee, Iain Stewart, and the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, Louise Haigh, as well as high level speakers from many different organisations.
MPs at the Cross-Domain Safety Assurance for Automated Transport Systems report launch
“A major part of our work at WMG, apart from the research and working with industry, is driving impact for our research through leading and influencing the international standards and regulation. We are involved with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) standards, and I am part of the discussions at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) forum. It is all about translating strong research evidence into regulations, because I strongly believe that regulations can be an enabler for automated technology.”
The MP’s notable commitments can be seen in this video:
Self-driving safety
Iain Stewart, MP for self-driving hotbed Milton Keynes South, said: “This technology is coming. We have to get it right. Together, we will be able to come up with that sensible set of world-leading regulations.”
Greg Clark, MP for Royal Tunbridge Wells, said: “In terms of the impacts of this programme, which are already considerable, Iain and myself, and our members, will make sure that government is aware of, and takes up, the requirements of the recommendations that are made.”
Louise Haigh, MP for Sheffield Heeley, said: “There’s a real economic opportunity in this type of innovation – from enhancing wellbeing and improving quality of life, through to reducing carbon emissions, the potential is there.”
There are further telling national and international contributions from Dr Biagio Ciuffo, Smart Mobility Project Portfolio Leader at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Tony Boylen, Principal Specialist in Assurance of Autonomy at Lloyd’s Register, Michael Gadd, Head of Office of Airworthiness at Blue Bear Systems Research, Tim Johnson, Policy Director at Civil Aviation Authority, Dr Genovefa Kefalidou, Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction at University of Leicester, and Nick Fleming, Associate Director of Transport & Mobility at BSI, amongst many others.
The full Cross-Domain Safety Assurance for Automated Transport Systems report (March 2023) can be found here.
From car sharing to emissions-based parking, Anne Snelson is one of the UK’s leading experts in transport carbon literacy – can self-driving help?
We were alerted to Anne’s fantastic work by motoring journalist Quentin Willson, who highlighted her challenge to LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky to promote new (rather disturbing) research into soaring Atlantic surface temperatures. In June, she reposted Dr Matthias Standfest’s prediction that “hurricanes, wildfires, heatwaves and droughts will shape the news of the next months”.
Since then, we’ve seen the dire consequences of climate change from Athens to Texas, the go-ahead for more oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, and Labour blaming the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) for its by-election loss in Uxbridge. Oh, and July was officially the hottest month ever recorded on Earth.
NK: How did you come to specialise in carbon literacy?
AS: “Gosh, it has been quite a journey! I was a policy researcher at the AA in the 1990s, looking at things like car sharing and ways to encourage motorists to cycle. Then I was at Vodafone for a while. Then I was marketing manager at RingGo for many years, which included rolling-out anaward-winning emissions-based parking solution.
“In 2009, the Liberal Democrat-led council in Richmond made a commitment to reduce emissions, so we worked with them to introduce carbon metered parking, whereby the price varies according to the emissions emitted by the vehicle in question. It had a significant impact, encouraging a transfer to electric vehicles (even though they were much less developed than they are today), and reducing the unnecessary use of larger vehicles. The scheme went on to be rolled-out in Westminster, resulting in a 16% drop in the use of diesel vehicles virtually overnight.
“After stints at EV network Co Charger and traffic monitoring company VivaCity, about two years ago, I made a life changing decision. I was obviously aware of the science around climate change, so my daughter kept asking me what I was going to do about it. The answer was to train in carbon literacy and offer my services as a consultant in the transport arena. That’s Lead With Sustainability.”
NK: What does it involve and how’s it all going?
AS: “The feedback to date has been overwhelmingly positive. Most importantly, it is leading to actions, making a real difference. We encourage businesses to look at their emissions and see where they can cut them. What’s the point in making money, owning big houses and travelling the world if there’s nowhere for our children and grandchildren to live?
“As well as the climate emergency, there’s the practical day-to-day problem that much of our road network is constantly on the verge of gridlock. So, we push the move to electric and also the fact that we simply must reduce car use.
“Good public transport is part of the solution, as is active travel. We also look at smart city ideas like 15-minute neighbourhoods – having everything you need within easy reach. That involves tackling thorny issues such as car ownership and car sharing.
“First, there has to be the provision, and then you have to incentivise people to make the switch. For example, with separate lanes for multi-occupancy vehicles. If alternative modes are faster and cheaper then people will naturally change their behaviours.”
Lead With Sustainability carbon literacy training testimonial
NK: And what role can self-driving play?
AS: “Connectivity can bring about changes even before we get to the higher levels of driving automation. Software could give Mr Jones the option of picking up Mr Smith, who is just round the corner and going to the same place, and that choice could be incentivised.
“A potentially negative scenario with self-driving is you could have lots of empty vehicles driving around causing further congestion. That’s arguably worse than having a big SUV with only the driver in it, which, ridiculously, you still see all the time. The increasing size of luxury vehicles is another issue.
“In London, a high percentage of people have already given up their cars, because they’re so expensive and inefficient. I accept that step might be more difficult for others, such as those living in rural areas, due to the lack of a viable alternative. But sometimes all you need is a change in attitude. I live in a medium sized commuter town and I’ve given up my car. It’s easier for some than others though.
“We’re working with local authorities and businesses of all shapes and sizes to educate people about these issues, to raise awareness of UK and international climate policies, to make people realise they can change the world for the better by reducing greenhouse gases.
“Particularly within councils, we encourage people to break out of their silos. A major problem is that, very often, parking is still separate from air quality, which is separate from highways, with little discussion between these divisions.
“Without major changes in the way we live, we’re heading for some pretty hard times. Fortunately, cities such as Glasgow and Nottingham already have ambitious carbon zero targets. Evolving technologies like clean fuel buses, self-driving or otherwise, will be part of that. My aim is to motivate people to reduce emissions at a personal, community and business level. And, in the process, they’ll save money too.”
Lead With Sustainability transport factsheet- can self-driving help?
For further info, to download a free factsheet, or to book an online Carbon Literacy Training session, visit Leadwithsustainability.co.uk
Helix develops antennas and array systems to improve navigation precision and offer enhanced resilience against jamming and spoofing.
Shortlisted last year, Megasets has now successfully won backing to develop its AV synthetic datasets.
Reed Mobility, recognised as a Zenzic CAM Creator back in 2020 (along with a certain self-driving news source), is the independent expert consultancy on future mobility run by Dr Nick Reed.
Last but not least, Robotiz3d is developing robots with machine learning capabilities for road maintenance, particularly fixing potholes.
Robotiz3d self-driving pothole fixer
CAM innovation
A Zenzic statement read: “These pioneering companies have demonstrated remarkable potential in the field of connected and automated mobility (CAM), and we are excited to support their journey towards bringing their innovative solutions to the market.
“Their participation in the Zenzic CAM Scale-Up UK programme will provide them with unique opportunities to test and refine their products at the renowned CAM Testbed UK facilities, ensuring their solutions meet the highest standards of performance and safety.
“We eagerly anticipate witnessing the incredible progress and achievements of these selected start-ups and SMEs as they contribute to the self-driving revolution in the UK and beyond.”
With big-name corporate partners including Honda, Thales and Vodafone, their work will be celebrated at the showcase CAM Innovators event in March 2024 – you can read our review of this year’s event here.
