The Lords: Government focused on the wrong driverless vehicles

The Government is too focused on highly-automated private road vehicles, when the early benefits of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) are likely to appear in other sectors, such as marine and agriculture, is one finding of a detailed report on driver-less vehicles prepared by the respected House of Lords science and technology committee.

The other three main findings are:

The development of CAV across different sectors needs coordination and the Government, working with key stakeholders, must get a grip on this chiefly by establishing a Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Leadership Council as soon as possible to play a key role in developing a strategy for CAV
There is need for further Government-commissioned social and economic research to weigh the potential human and financial implications of CAV.
This is a fast-moving area of technology and the Government has much to do, alongside industry and other partners, to position the UK so that it can take full advantage of the opportunities that CAV offer in different sectors.

The report continues by proposing actions that will address the four findings.

‘Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The future?‘ is available free, as is the evidence it is based on.