I make no apology for opening this issue with the topic of regulation. It’s not dull, it’s mission-critical for this industry to carry the public along in developing automated vehicles (AVs).
We need protective regulations in parallel with exciting technologies, for the quickest way of alienating the public and squandering the AV’s enormous opportunities would be a series of accidents due to poor legislation and standards. At a mobility conference session during CES in January, Gary Shapiro, president & CEO of Consumer Technology Association (CTA, the Las Vegas show organisers), told delegates, “(Driverless mobility’s) promise lies in its ability to improve lives, make roads safer and more accessible.”
IoT Now welcomes the recent launch of PAVE (Partners for Automated Vehicle Education), backed by (among others) Audi, Daimler, Intel, CTA, NVIDIA, and Toyota. Oliver Cameron, CEO and cofounder of Voyage, commented, “Public trust is crucial to the rollout of self-driving cars. It’s crucial we all come together and tell folks why selfdriving cars are safe and why they’re important.”
“There’s a line between underregulation and over-regulation,” commented Amnon Shashua, president & CEO of Mobileye. “No-one wants over-regulation, but I think here in the US we’re in a state of under-regulation. The point is to find the (…) right kind of regulation that is needed in order to steer the industry and provide public support. PAVE is a coalition of actors to help regulatory bodies find the right level of regulation.”
This is not all that internet-connected transport offers us, of course. The IoT dangles so many positive possibilities in front of us, ranging from the benefits of vehicle telematics for drivers and insurers (Talking Heads interview, pages 64-67), to the opportunity to monetise transport data (pages 62-63). To manage expectations, we owe it to ourselves to educate the public about current limitations of IoT-enabled transport as much as the exciting opportunities. The last word goes to Deborah Hersman, CEO of the US National Safety Council, who told #CES2019, “The one thing that will trip up this industry is if the public doesn’t believe these vehicles to be safe.”
Jeremy Cowan,
editorial director, Transport360
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