2020 vision? Hot takes going like hot cakes...
We approach the end of 2019 and indeed the end of the 2010s. After many years of relative stagnation, it has been an amazing decade to be involved in transport. At the turn of the previous decade, the Google self-driving car project was still in stealth, Uber had barely been founded, Lyft didn’t exist and no-one talked about ‘Mobility-as-a-Service’, happy days…😃
For me, the three most significant trends through the 2010s have been, firstly, the rapid rise of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) up and over the peak of the Gartner hype cycle; secondly, the increasing prominence of environmental concerns in transport decision making and, thirdly, the failure of nations with established road transport systems to continue the reductions in road fatalities that were achieved in previous years.
Tracking the Gartner hype cycle for automated vehicles
For CAVs, the decade began with ambitious promises about the benefits of automated driving. In the first quarter of 2010, Wired claimed that Audi’s automated vehicle “drives better than you do” (in the challenging but highly constrained operational design domain of the Pike’s Peak hill climb course). In the latter half of 2010, Google revealed that a team of researchers were working on a self-driving car project as reported in TechCrunch (with obligatory Knight Rider image) and its vehicles had completed 140,000 miles of automated driving on California roads. This project would go on to become Google’s Waymo offshoot that, after millions of miles of testing, is now tentatively delivering commercial on-road automated vehicle services in Phoenix.
On the back of a wave of optimism about the potential benefits of automated vehicles, the UK also got involved in the CAV space. In 2013, the University of Oxford debuted its RobotCarUK – an adapted Nissan Leaf developed by the Mobile Robotics Group. This team, led by Paul Newman and Ingmar Posner, formed the basis of the Oxford Robotics Institute as part of the university and a commercial offshoot Oxbotica, with a mission to develop what they describe as ‘Universal Autonomy’. Now with over 150 employees, it has been a key player in driving automated vehicle R&D in the UK
The momentum from 2013 evolved into a joint call for projects in the summer of 2014 from the UK Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills under a programme entitled ‘Introducing Driverless Cars to UK Roads’. In 2015, three projects launched funded under this programme in Greenwich (GATEway – led by TRL), Bristol (Venturer – led by Atkins) and Milton Keynes / Coventry (UK Autodrive – led by Arup), each funded to trial automated vehicles in public environments and investigate issues of acceptance of the technology.
Launch vehicles for the Venturer (Bowler / Land Rover), UK Autodrive (Ford Mondeo / RDM Pod) and GATEway (Meridian shuttle) projects (L-R)
These projects triggered a wave of considerations around the operation and use of automated vehicles in the UK and these were picked up by a dedicated policy unit, the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), created that summer. They also triggered subsequent waves of further collaborative R&D projects and feasibility studies, bringing together industry, research and public sector organisations to tackle a range of CAV challenges and use case demonstrators – and has contributed to the growth of CAV businesses in the UK, including FiveAI, Arrival, Fusion Processing, RDM / Aurrigo, Conigital and Westfield.
Aside from these projects, the UK has also been a global leader in its support for automated vehicle development with the Department for Transport creating a code of practice for the testing of automated vehicles (recently updated) and establishing Testbed UK – a set of CAV development facilities all within three hours of one another and with differing capabilities. Whilst each facility is operated by different consortia, their activities are coordinated by Zenzic, an organisation backed by Government and supported by industry, which was launched in 2017 (originally as Meridian Mobility) to facilitate CAV development in the UK. To further enhance the UK’s standing, the Government has called upon BSI to review and develop standards to support the development and implementation of CAVs and the Law Commission to undertake a three-year review of the legal challenges to AV operations.
2014 saw the first publication of SAE J3016 (Taxonomy and Definitions for Terms Related to On-Road Motor Vehicle Automated Driving Systems) classification of vehicle automation capabilities that defines six levels (from 0 – no automation to 5 – full automation). They have come into common parlance in the sector but the precisely written and nuanced engineering definitions are often misused in more general use – particularly where level 2 vehicles are mistakenly called level 3 (due to the misperception that the driver need not attend to the driving task) and where level 4 vehicles are mistakenly called level 5 (due to the misperception of the constraints of automation imposed by a vehicle’s operational design domain). For this reason, many have questioned (e.g. Inagaki & Sheridan, 2018; Noy, Shinar & Horrey, 2018; Roy, 2018) whether the SAE levels are fit for purpose outside the strict engineering domain.
In contrast to the positivity around automated vehicles in the first half of the decade, the prominent coverage of the deaths of Joshua Brown in 2016, at the wheel of a Tesla whilst in ‘Autopilot’ mode on a highway in Florida, and of Elaine Herzberg in 2018, a pedestrian struck by an Uber automated driving development vehicle in Arizona cast a shadow over the industry. Subsequent NTSB investigations of the Brown incident and the Herzberg incident served to highlight the critical importance of safety culture in the development of this technology.
As we enter the 2020s, there is a palpable reticence around CAVs with a key question around how we can prove that CAVs are safe enough for use in the public realm. Development continues apace based on the potential safety, efficiency and accessibility promises that CAVs may deliver but with growing scepticism over the practical and commercially viable uses to which such vehicles can be put and whether CAV R&D represents an efficient use of resources relative to the pressing need to decarbonise transportation.
Regarding environmental awareness in transport, the sector is coming to terms with its position as an increasingly prominent contributor to carbon emissions. Based on UK 2018 data, whilst the energy supply sector has more successfully decarbonised, the transport sector accounted for around a third of all carbon dioxide emissions – the largest of any sector and with the majority coming from road transport. In 2019, the term ‘flygskam’ came to embody a broader sense that countries in the Global North must address their responsibility for the majority of per capita carbon emissions and energy demand but any limits applied to countries in the Global South need to balance fair opportunities for growth and prosperity with the risk that their mass adoption of road and air travel modes could be hugely detrimental for the environment. In the recent UK elections, the major parties offered differing visions for when the UK would seek to achieve carbon neutral status following the declaration of a climate emergency by UK Parliament in May 2019 and similar declarations by the majority of local councils. The concern now is the extent to which such declarations are backed up by genuine actions that truly reflect a state of emergency.
The stagnation in road safety improvements is a frustration for many countries. Since the 1960s, the UK has seen a consistent trend for reductions in fatalities but in the 2010s this has reached a plateau (that said, vehicle miles travelled has continued to increase through the decade so the rate of fatalities per unit distance has continued to decrease).
UK Department for Transport data showing the plateau of UK road fatalities through the 2010s
There are several possible explanations though none have been systematically proven as far as I am aware. It could be that the growing popularity of smartphones has played a role in the distraction of pedestrians and drivers alike resulting in more incidents. Maybe the rise in popularity of SUVs is a factor – these larger, heavier vehicles will produce collisions with greater energy transference for a given speed than collisions involving smaller vehicles resulting in more severe injuries. Similarly, their impact characteristics – hitting collision partners at a higher position – may also increase the likelihood of serious harm. Another possibility is that the global financial crisis in 2008 contributed to a reduction in road fatalities for a few years thereafter and, as the economy has recovered through the 2010s, the resultant increase in risk has balanced out the general trend for road safety improvement that is achieved through better road and vehicle design, improvements in driver training, advances in emergency healthcare etc. This association between the economy and road safety was explored in an ITF report for the OECD (including UK research on the topic by TRL) and suggests changes in traffic patterns, reductions in speed, reductions in drink-driving and increases in unemployment all contribute to the observed reductions in road fatalities. Perhaps vehicle automation can help restore the downward trend in road casualty statistics.
One of the hottest road safety topics of the decade was the implementation of Smart Motorways, about which I have written previously – suffice to say that it will be interesting to see the results of the review of Smart Motorway safety that was launched in October 2019.
Given this backdrop and my own areas of interest and experience, I have highlighted five topics that I think will be of particular interest in 2020.
1. UK transport policy
With the December 2019 election completed and a Conservative majority secured, the Government has a strong position from which to implement policies described in its manifesto. The Secretary of State for Transport remains Grant Shapps, who was appointed in July 2019 and who has approached the role with gusto. It is apparent that he is an EV fan so we can perhaps expect to see further support for policies that facilitate EV rollout. The excellent Nicole Badstuber produced a very useful pre-election guide to the transport policies of the two main parties. This highlighted the Conservatives commitment to improve local bus and rail services and cycling provision but pointedly questions whether sufficient funds have been allocated to deliver those improvements in any meaningful way. Badstuber also notes the asymmetry between these commitments and the allocation of £28.8 billion for road building, which seems contrary to requirements of the climate emergency that the Government has declared. Other sensitive issues to be faced include the ongoing sagas of HS2 and the Heathrow third runway and plans to curtail the right of rail workers to strike. Whilst it seems to have a lower profile, I hope that CAV work continues to get the support it has enjoyed over the last five years and that the great work set out in the DfT’s Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy continues as part of broad programme that addresses the climate, health, prosperity and equality impacts delivered by our transport system.
2. Waymo / Latent Logic
A very interesting move at the end of 2019 was Waymo’s acquisition of Latent Logic. Based in Oxford, Latent Logic delivers realistic models of human behaviour in traffic simulations – a critical feature for the safe development of AVs. Clearly, Latent Logic’s expertise in this area proved irresistible to a global leader in AV development and operation. It will be fascinating to see how this relationship develops and what it means for UK CAV R&D.
3. London mayoral elections
In 2018, London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan launched a transport strategy for the city, based on the ‘Healthy Streets’ approach and promising to deliver radically improved air quality and a dramatic increase in the proportion of trips made by active travel modes or on public transport. Similarly, it has been impressive to see how Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham, working with Olympic cycling gold medallist Chris Boardman as walking and cycling commissioner, has sought to increase active travel in the city. On 7th May 2020, London will hold mayoral elections and the UK’s political turbulence over the last four years may well seep into this process. However, transport is a critical issue for the city (for any city!) and it will be intriguing to observe how ambitious and how radical the candidates’ plans are for London’s transport system and how these competing visions are received by the electorate.
4. International activities
There are many international transport developments that could bubble to the surface in 2020. These could include progress made by Argo AI working with investor partners Ford and VW to develop AVs in the U.S. and Europe, especially given Ford’s continued commitment to commercial deployment in 2021. How will the NTSB investigation into the Uber crash affect future AV testing and deployment? Will Tesla get anywhere close to delivering the long promised ‘full self-driving’ package and what will be the caveats associated with its eventual release? What further progress will we see from Chinese companies, perhaps related to Baidu’s Apollo initiative or the creation of AV-only lanes? How will Waymo expand its current commercial service beyond the initial offering in Arizona and how will its partnerships with Fiat-Chrysler, Jaguar Land Rover and Renault evolve? Finally, it will be exciting to see how my work as part of the European Commission expert group on the ethical issues of driverless mobility will be received as it emerges through 2020.
5. UK CAV activities
It would be remiss of me not to recognise some of the many exciting developments in the UK CAV space for the year ahead and with more certainty over the political situation, perhaps appropriate investment will resume to support the sector. As mentioned, BSI are progressing with their programme to develop standards for the CAV sector to lay the foundations for safer, more robust testing and development of this technology. Zenzic will continue to support the facilities that constitute Testbed UK, each of which will be seeking to attract commercial partners to their respective locations for CAV R&D work. 2020 is also the year in which another element of Testbed UK will emerge – the ConVEx project. This will create an open commercial platform for the exchange of CAV relevant data and it will be fascinating to see how such a platform can help to generate new insights for CAV developers and those with an interest in future mobility. Research will also continue apace in UCL’s ‘Driverless Futures?’ project that is exploring societal readiness for automated vehicles, the governance structures that are shaping their introduction and whether the vision of transport systems towards which we are heading is truly optimal. In 2020, we should get to see the first on-road trials of truck platooning in the UK in the TRL-led, Highways England funded project, Helm UK – how will UK drivers react to these close following trucks and will they promised fuel efficiency benefits achieved on test tracks be achieved under real world conditions? It will be interesting to see how AppyWay continue their evolution from AppyParking to become the champion of the kerbside – having secured some high-profile partnerships and delivered successful implementation projects, how can they further enhance management of parking infrastructure to satisfy the (often divergent interests) of local authorities, drivers and commercial organisations? In 2020, we may see more from Propelmee - the bold UK based team that is developing what they describe as “globally scalable self-driving technology” and who have posted many videos of their technology in action via their Twitter account. Finally, the Roborace automated racing initiative will move from Season Alpha to Season Beta, representing a genuinely new frontier motorsport. However, perhaps even more interesting is the Autonomous Driving Alliance (ADA) –the brainchild of Roborace’s Chief Strategy Officer, Bryn Balcombe. Now an official focus group of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), ADA aims to build public trust in AVs through the creation of a ‘Turing Test’ for artificial intelligence applied to road vehicles, which could become the basis of an international driving permit for AI.
There is lots to look out for in 2020 and indeed the topics listed above represent only a fraction of the area – and these are only the topics that are foreseeable, I’m sure there are plenty of unexpected developments that will surprise and delight us. Mangling the Chinese curse, we do indeed live in interesting times. Having played leadership roles in GATEway, the Smart Mobility Living Lab, ConVEx and several other high profile CAV projects, it has been a privilege to have contributed to progress in this sector. As ever, if you think Reed Mobility might help you and your organisation in navigating the future of mobility through the 2020s, don’t hesitate to get in touch…!