Andrew Jones

www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk OCTOBER 2015
The evolution
of autonomous
vehicles
ROAD MAINTENANCE 25
Charlie Henderson is
an expert in transport,
travel and logistics at PA
Consulting Group. Here
he examines the future of
autonomous vehicles
Autonomous capability is
increasingly built into vehicles in the
form of self-parking, adaptive cruise
control and assisted-braking. Recent
demonstrations have shown that
fully autonomous vehicles are not
only technically feasible but that
they can operate successfully on
‘live’ roads. What is less clear is how
quickly different groups will adopt
autonomous technologies and how
the range of social, regulatory and
other obstacles to the roll-out of
driverless vehicles will be overcome.
The interesting challenge of autonomous
vehicles is “you haven’t solved anything
until you have solved everything” – while
the technology may work, many other
issues need to be sorted before there is
widespread adoption. Some technologists
have sought to map out what the future
will look like in in order to understand
how these wider issues could be solved.
This is an important first step. However,
in our experience of helping with
technology adoption in other sectors,
we find it more useful to look at a range
of options, or FutureWorlds, based on
a number of varying dimensions. This
avoids a specific prediction of the future
(which will inevitably be wrong) and
provides a more effective way to consider
the potentially multiple courses of
technology adoption.
Two interesting dimensions to the
evolution of autonomous vehicles are:
è The extent to which travel is a private
activity (in which people own and
value their vehicle) versus a shared
activity (in which they value mobility
and availability)
è The extent to which autonomous
vehicle adoption are incremental
versus transformational.
On the basis of these two dimensions,
we developed four potential future
scenarios which allow for a more fruitful
discussion of the benefits and challenges
that autonomous vehicles present.
AUTOMATA WORLD
Here autonomous vehicles
have rapidly become
pervasive and acceptable.
Supportive legislation and
evidence that the vehicles
are safe have allowed truly
driverless vehicles to be
developed and, importantly,
used. Privately owned
vehicles are still popular, but
people make more efficient
use of their cars.
This world has greater
emphasis on the transport
operators for safety
failures. Today, a highways
authority is unlikely to be
blamed for a motorway
pile-up. In Automata World
when a platoon of vehicles
crash, the allocation of
responsibility is much more
complex.
This debate about
responsibility underlined
that it will require
a combination of
technological, infrastructure,
legal and insurance
developments – coupled
with social acceptance – to
get to an automata world.
Characteristics
Rapid, widespread adoption
Full driverless vehicles
High public confidence
and trust
Car ownership remains
popular
Implications
Increased mobility for all
Complex legal and
insurance liabilities
Significant investment in
technical infrastructure
GARDEN CITY WORLD
This world sees the most dramatic change with
driverless cars gaining rapid acceptance as
they offer safe and efficient ways of reducing
congestion. The key social change in this world
is that personal car ownership becomes a niche
activity because it is cheaper and faster simply
to summon up a vehicle on your smartphone.
This does, however, raise potential privacy
concerns as details of every journey need to be
stored centrally.
A key driver for change is the cost of owning
and maintaining a car versus the cost of buying
tickets for an autonomous vehicle journey. In
Garden City World, the cost of a single trip to
the garage soars as the complexity of vehicles
increase – the local garage is no longer able to
service all the software and sensors vehicles are
fitted with. In contrast, centralised maintenance
spreads these costs over many vehicles and
makes corporate ownership and leasing more
attractive. Another feature of this world is
that convenience is key – shared transport
(e.g. pod cars).
The challenges arise from the fact that travel
might not be as fast as the public want
(because they need to wait for a vehicle) and
they may not be able to choose their own
routes. This raises the whole question of the
trade-offs people make between costs and ease
of journey. Here there is a generational divide
between younger people (who value the ability
to do other things while travelling) and older
people (who prefer more control over route and
mode choice).
Characteristics
Rapid, widespread adoption
Full driverless vehicles
High public confidence and trust
Private car ownership becomes a niche activity
Implications
Cost of car ownership increases
Generational divisions emerge
Loss of control over route choice
Potential privacy concerns