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.
A new study from China has concluded that self-driving could reduce both emissions and energy consumption by more than 60%, potentially increasing to 76% if combined with vehicle electrification.
Discovered as part of our pledge to focus more on the environmental impacts of self-driving, the “Energy and environmental impacts of shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) under different pricing strategies” paper was published by Nature in February, in partnership with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).
Self-driving emissions reduction
Designed to help transport authorities gain a deeper understanding of future trends, the report’s lead author was Dr Shaopeng Zhong, of Dalian University of Technology.
“The introduction of vehicle automation, shared mobility, and vehicle electrification will bring about changes in urban transportation, land use, energy, and the environment,” it begins.
“However, existing research on estimating the energy and environmental effects of shared autonomous electric vehicles generally ignores the interaction between land-use and transportation systems.
“Under an appropriate pricing strategy, SAV deployment could reduce particulate matter emission and energy consumption by 56–64% and 53–61%, respectively. With the further introduction of vehicle electrification, these can rise to 76% and 74%.”
Double-edged sword
The report goes on to describe SAVs as a double-edged sword, because “On the one hand, SAVs can save energy and reduce emissions by, for example, promoting transportation efficiency, increasing road capacity, mitigating congestion, reducing accident frequency, matching vehicle sizes to trip requirements and eco-driving.
“On the other hand, SAVs can lower people’s marginal travel costs and make the locational decisions of residents and enterprises more free, leading to urban sprawl and increased travel time, distance, and frequency.”
The team therefore compared various SAV development scenarios for Jiangyin, a region of China at the forefront of self-driving, before concluding that: “An appropriate SAV fare can play an integral part in promoting sustainable development. Pricing policy will affect public acceptance of SAVs and is also an important means of realising effective SAV.”
Neil Kennett MOVE 2023 event review – self-driving, software-defined, clean fuel and more…
MOVE, “The world’s most important urban mobility event”, returned to London last week with two action packed days at the ExCeL centre.
As well as moderating the software defined vehicle panel, and seeing a vast array of amazing new self-driving-related tech from established multinationals and innovative start-ups, it was my pleasure to host the morning session on the Autonomous Vehicles stage.
MOVE Pledge 2023
Let’s start with my #MOVE2023 pledge. The organisers ask all speakers to make “a concrete pledge towards safer, smarter and more sustainable mobility”, for which we can be held accountable at next year’s event. In this pre-event piece I mused that I might just repeat my pledge from last year. Actually, I didn’t.
My all-new MOVE pledge for this year is two-fold: To encourage people to read David Attenborough’s bestselling book – A Life on Our Planet – which is brilliant and quite scary; and to focus more on the environmental impacts of self-driving – an under-researched area with competing theories – some highly negative, some highly positive.
Neil Kennett #MOVE2023 self-driving pledge
It is designed to remind myself (and you) that it is up to us to bring about the changes essential to avert ecological disaster. Taking my own advice, I met up with Jessica Battle, senior expert in global ocean policy and lead on the No Deep Seabed Mining Initiative at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) – watch this space.
Self-driving stage
Our first speaker in Theatre 2 was Mark Cracknell, of Zenzic, who focussed on the role of SMEs in the connected and automated mobility ecosystem. He highlighted the world-leading projects funded via CCAV’s Commercialising CAM competition, asserting that no other country will have a greater breadth of self-driving services on the road by 2025.
It was standing room only for our next speaker, Dr Joanna White, Roads Development Director at National Highways, who set out plans to future-proof the UK’s road network for AVs. She highlighted the success of the HumanDrive project, and the fantastically-named Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: Infrastructure Appraisal Readiness (CAVIAR) project.
Dr Joanna White, of National Highways, at #MOVE2023
The first panel of the day saw Zeina Nazer, of Cities Forum, discussing new strategies for the safe deployment of ADAS and autonomous tech with Dr Nick Reed, in his role as chief road safety advisor to National Highways, and The Law Commission’s Nicholas Paines QC.
Paines noted that the three-year review of legislation to enable the deployment of automated vehicles on British roads was the first time the Commission had been asked to design a law for the future.
In response to a question from the audience, he also clarified that data protection was excluded from the terms of reference, instead being covered by GDPR.
They went on to cover the potential role of remote driving and the importance of public acceptance, with Reed highlighting the Vision Zero strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries.
Jayesh Jagasia, of the AI in Automotive podcast, then took over hosting, including introducing the aforementioned “Embracing the SDV: Welcome to life in the software defined lane” panel.
Moderated by my good self, it featured: Patrick Blume, Head of Product for Urban Mobility at Mercedes-Benz; John Wall, Senior Vice-President at BlackBerry and head of its QNX system; and Marcus Welz, Vice President of Smart Mobility at Hyundai Motor Europe. A pertinent fact is that BlackBerry QNX is now embedded in over 235 million vehicles worldwide.
We only had 25 minutes, but we crammed a lot in, delving into cybersecurity, common codebase, OTA updates, verification and validation, changing car sales models, in-car personalisation, smart city connectivity, MAAS, ADAS and self-driving.
Serious points included Wall outlining the ability to refresh cars already on the road, the huge investments in what Blume described as the race for a competitive advantage, and Welz revealing an initiative to encourage Hyundai staff into multi-modal transport. Now that’s progressive!
Lighter moments included Welz describing the shift to self-driving as “a transition to The Jetsons”
We ended on the ability of near-future software-defined vehicles to reduce road traffic collisions, and therefore RTC fatalities and injuries, by up to 80% – oft-quoted maybe, but impressive, game-changing and thoroughly commendable nonetheless. My thanks to Max Kadera of MOVE and Lee the sound guy.
With moderating duties duly performed, I headed out into the arena, catching up with contacts old and new – Barbara Fitzsimons of Zenzic, Gunny Dhadyalla of AESIN, Karla Jakeman of TRL, Nick Fleming of BSI, Ben Loewenstein of Waymo and the IMI’s Mark Armitage.
ACES opinions
As IMI CEO Steve Nash noted: “MOVE represents the entire ACES (autonomous, connected, electric and shared) piece. You turn up with one opinion and have to moderate it after listening to all the different speakers.”
There were big eye-catching displays by business electric car subscription firm EZoo, ZF – with its Araiv Shuttle, powered by Oxa (formerly Oxbotica) – and HGV manufacturer Hydrogen Vehicle Systems. HVS are apparently talking to Fusion Processing (of CAVForth fame) about software – you heard it here first!
Hydrogen Vehicle Systems (HVS) at #MOVE2023
Further intriguing snippets included Teragence CEO Christian Rouffaert on their mobile connectivity data, Alex Bainbridge of Autoura on expansion in the US, Amir Tirosh of StoreDot on how their new EV fast charging delivers consistently better quality in record time, Sandip Gangakhedkar of Fetch on the expansion of their remote driving car delivery trial – now open to the public across Milton Keynes – and Dr Martin Dürr, of Dromos, on talks with city authorities around the world, particularly in the UK and US.
We’re already looking forward to #MOVE2024, at ExCeL again, on 19-20 June next year. In the meantime, we have our own event planned…
Our Cars of the Future flyer for #MOVE2023 mentioned a self-driving event…
