One of the UK’s leading transport operators, Stagecoach, is testing a full-sized autonomous bus at a depot in Manchester.
Working in partnership with vehicle manufacturer Alexander Dennis and
technology company Fusion Processing, the first public demonstration was held
on Monday 18 March.
Stagecoach chief executive, Martin Griffiths, said: “This is an exciting
project to trial autonomous technology on a full-sized bus for the first time
in the UK.
“Our employees are the beating heart of our business and I believe that
will remain the case, but the world is changing fast, particularly where new
technology is involved.”
Stagecoach operates over 8,000 vehicles and employs 18,000 people in the
UK.
Jim Hutchinson, CEO of Fusion Processing, added: “Our CAVstar sensor and
control system has now been successfully applied to vehicles ranging in size
from two-seater electric vehicles right up to a 43-seat bus.
“Our advanced driver-assistance systems already offer improved
operational safety for buses and HGVs, and we anticipate further new ADAS
products as spin offs from the autonomous vehicle (AV) bus project.”
Much of the debate about autonomous vehicles (AVs) has focused on the driverless dilemma – who to save, or kill, in no-win crash situations.
This subject is often explored via a thought experiment called The Trolley Problem, which imagines a runaway train and five people tied to the track. If you intervene by pulling a lever, the train will switch to a track with just one person.
Numerous studies, notably The Moral Machine, suggest broad agreement that: 1) humans should be saved over animals; 2) the lives of many should outweigh the few; and 3) the young should have precedence over the old.
However, in this article for Robotics Business Review, Julian De Frietas, of the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and Sam Anthony, of Perceptive Automata (a company specialising in human behaviour in robotic systems), question the merit of applying such thinking to driverless cars.
“There
are two problems with the trolley dilemma – first of all, it’s a distraction to
the work that is being done on making AVs safer, and second, it has this
built-in assumption that AVs can see the world perfectly,” says Anthony.
Initially this seems cavalier,
an affront to the mainstream view that the driverless dilemma is vital to the
debate. It is certainly an issue that cuts through with the public.
De Frietas goes on to assert that such dilemmas – situations where you have the
time to make a considered decision as to who to kill but can’t use that time to
avert it – are rare.
A better approach, he argues, is aiming to avoid harm: “That means that if most of what you’re doing on the road is just avoiding more mundane things, then optimizing to that goal will cover you.”
On a personal note, I’ve been driving for 25
years and have only found myself in something resembling a trolley dilemma once.
A car pulled out in front me – pedestrians left, solid traffic right. I almost
managed to stop but went into the side of the car that pulled out. We all
walked away but, believe me, one trolley dilemma in a lifetime is more than
enough.
In the same situation, what will a driverless car’s
programming tell it to do? Will this vary across different makes and models?
Should vehicle owners have any control over the settings?
Perhaps Anthony and De Frietas deserve credit for scrutinising
the driverless dilemma, but their stance only reaffirms my view that it should be the touchstone for all autonomous vehicle development.
Coventry-based autonomous vehicle specialist Aurrigo has partnered with Blind Veterans UK for what it says is the world’s first real-world driverless trial involving disabled people.
Starting
in April 2019, a six-month programme of testing will explore how they can
deliver improved mobility and independence.
An Aurrigo four-seater pod has been specially
adapted with the needs of vision-impaired people in mind. For example, with
improved lighting, prominent colours on grab rails and voice activated controls.
It will
travel at a maximum 15mph around the charity’s training and rehabilitation
centre in Ovingdean, near Brighton.
“Having
feedback from Blind Veterans UK and their members taking part will be a massive
boost in improving our pods and making them more user-friendly for people with
disabilities,” said Miles Garner, sales and marketing director at Aurrigo.
Major
General Nick Caplin CB, chief executive of Blind Veterans UK, added: “So many
of the blind veterans we support say that not being able to drive is one of the
most significant things that hits you when you lose your sight. It’s another
way of losing independence and can make people feel more isolated.
“Anything
we can do to assist and feedback on this new technology will hopefully benefit
the lives of our veterans and the wider disabled community in the years to
come.”
Aurrigo has already hit the headlines this year for its impressive work with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) using light projections to communicate the intentions of self-driving vehicles – for example, stopping or turning left or right.
“The trials are about understanding how much information a self-driving
vehicle should share with a pedestrian to gain their trust,” said Pete Bennett, future mobility research manager
at JLR.
“This pioneering research is forming the basis of ongoing development
into how self-driving cars will interact with people in the future.”
Waymo, the company which began life as Google’s self-driving car project back in 2009, has posted a 16-second video of perhaps the most impressive driverless feat to date.
The signal lights on a busy US crossroads are out, so a policeman is stood in the middle of the junction directing traffic – illustrated by the yellow box in the graphic.
The Waymo driverless car stops and waits for the officer to wave it across – see the speeded-up film in the bottom right.
Waymo self-driving car navigates a police controlled intersection
Adding to its reputation as the world leader in autonomous vehicles, in October 2018 Waymo revealed that its self-driving cars have already driven over 10 million miles on public roads.
If you’ve got a couple of hours to digest important driverless car questions, try this online course from the University of Michigan: Self-Driving Cars Teach-Out.
The university’s Ann Arbor campus is home to the 32-acre Mcity test facility, the first purpose-built proving ground for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs).
Carrie Morton, deputy director of Mcity, describes it as “the ultimate sandbox”, a place to foster collaboration with industry, government and academic partners.
Following a quick overview of the key on-board technologies – sensors, lidar, GPS etc – the university’s experts get into the nitty gritty of their specialisms.
Liz Gerber, professor of public policies, sets the scene, saying: “The promise of driverless vehicles is super exciting for communities and for society. We talk about the promise of reduced congestion, increased mobility options and enhanced safety and convenience.”
Professor Matthew Johnson Roberson discusses the fragility of artificial intelligence (AI) in dealing with new systems, the challenge of getting from 95% to 99.99% accuracy, and the importance of failing gracefully in the event of an error.
Professor Dan Crane looks at balancing competition, differentiation and standardisation, asserting that we should encourage “a thousand flowers to bloom”, because no one yet knows which technologies will work best.
Ian Williams, inaugural fellow for the Law & Mobility Program, addresses privacy concerns and the ability to change settings. He also raises the possibility of motorists being encouraged out of driving via the prohibitive cost of insurance.
Big picture thinking comes from Alex Murphy, assistant professor in sociology, who considers the profound impacts of a lack of transportation – from the kinds of jobs people can take to the schools they can access. “It has huge implications for inequality,” she says.
Lionel Robert, associate professor in the School of Information, predicts that we’ll see level five, fully autonomous, go anywhere CAVs “in our lifetime”. He focusses on giving consumers “accurate trust” in the technology, not under- or over-trust.
One reassuring point which crops up time and again is the continuing need for humans – from John the safety conductor on the Mcity Shuttle, to roles variously described as truck operators, fleet attendants, concierges and guides.
This evolution could potentially help to offset the fear that driverless technology will immediately put people out of a job, a belief which has been blamed for attacks on self-driving test cars.
CAV’s potential to help the blind community was also particularly thought-provoking.
Probably the highest profile fatal crash involving a driverless car occurred in Arizona in March 2018.
An Uber test car, in autonomous mode but with a safety driver, hit a 49-year-old homeless woman in the city of Tempe.
Elaine Herzberg was walking with a bicycle and not on a crossing. It was the first reported fatal crash in the US involving a self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian.
“Prior work in this area has typically only looked at still images,” said Ram Vasudevan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “It wasn’t really concerned with how people move in three dimensions.”
By studying things like gait pace, foot placement and the symmetry of arms and legs, the team attempt to predict the future locations of one or several pedestrians up to 50 yards from the vehicle.
“If a pedestrian is playing with their phone, you know they’re distracted,” said Vasudevan. “Their pose and where they’re looking is telling you a lot about their level of attentiveness. It is also telling you a lot about what they’re capable of doing next.”
Previously, the most notorious driverless crash was also in the US, in 2016, when a Tesla Model S in autopilot mode smashed into a truck’s trailer, killing the car’s 40-year-old driver.
There have been numerous close shaves too.
Just last week in St. John’s, Canada, a driverless car reportedly set off at high-speed down a residential street, jumped a snow bank and slammed into a nearby garage.
Incredibly, no one was hurt. The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) is investigating.
A new report by KPMG shows the UK has dropped two places, to seventh, in its Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index.
While this could be interpreted as a blow to the UK government’s commitment to be at the forefront of driverless technology, KPMG was at pains to emphasize that this was “only due to high-performers Norway and Finland joining the index”.
Countries were assessed on 25 different measures across four pillars – policy & legislation, technology & innovation, infrastructure, and consumer acceptance.
KPMG 2019 Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index image
As last year, The Netherlands ranked #1, praised for its efforts to run platoons of driverless trucks on major ‘Tulip Corridor’ routes from Amsterdam to Antwerp and Rotterdam to the Ruhr valley. Singapore ranked #2 thanks to its test town for driverless vehicles.
Sarah Owen-Vandersluis, head of public mobility strategy for KPMG in the UK, commented: “The UK has made a lot of inroads with big investments, a committed government and world-leading policy; it has seen many positive announcements regarding both private sector initiatives and local and central government strategies.”
In a separate paper – Mobility 2030: Transforming the mobility landscape – KPMG highlighted three key disruptive forces: 1) Electric vehicles (EVs) and alternative powertrains; 2) Connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs); and 3) On-demand mobility services.
Ford Europe has posted a new video highlighting an innovative approach to autonomous vehicle testing:
Drivers frequently use hand gestures (!), head nods and eye contact to communicate with other road users. For example, to establish that a pedestrian is crossing, that a cyclist has seen them or that they’re letting another car go first.
But how will self-driving vehicles achieve a similar degree of interaction? One idea is to use flashing lights of different colours.
To test the theory without spending a fortune on autonomous tech, Ford created the “Human Car Seat” – camouflaging a driver so the vehicle, at first glance at least, looks driverless.
This homespun method allows observers to more effectively gauge real-world responses.
