Skip to main content

Big data and self-driving cars: New studies from ITF

Two new reports launched by the International Transport Forum (ITF) during the Annual Summit of Transport Ministers in Leipzig, Germany, highlight issues for the transport sector: the use of big data and the trend towards automated cars. The ITF claims that failing to ensure strong privacy protection in the collection and processing of location data may result in a regulatory backlash against the technology, which could hamper innovation and limit the social and economic benefits the use of such data delive
May 29, 2015 Read time: 4 mins

Two new reports launched by the 998 International Transport Forum (ITF) during the Annual Summit of Transport Ministers in Leipzig, Germany, highlight issues for the transport sector: the use of big data and the trend towards automated cars.

The ITF claims that failing to ensure strong privacy protection in the collection and processing of location data may result in a regulatory backlash against the technology, which could hamper innovation and limit the social and economic benefits the use of such data delivers.

The volume and speeds at which data is generated, processed and stored today will fundamentally alter the transport sector. Location-sensing technologies, which are becoming increasingly universal, are able to precisely locate and track people, vehicles and objects with up to a few centimetres precision.

The combination of data that is deliberately recorded, collected accidentally and generated through crowd-sourcing provides new information and patterns about transport activity and flows. This data can be used beneficially to enhance road safety, but is difficult to anonymise and its collection also creates unique privacy risks.

Data protection policies are lagging behind new modes of data collection and uses, and this is especially true for location data. Regulators and academia are split between two approaches: Retaining prior notification and consent for data collection, or allowing collection of data without user consent while specifying allowable uses.

To avoid unintended consequences, effective protection of location data should be built upfront into technologies, algorithms and processes, using perhaps a ‘privacy by design’ that would enable users to control the rights regarding their data.

The ITF is also concerned about the regulations, safety and legacy risks of automated vehicles.

It says that major car manufacturers and several technology firms have announced the commercial production of highly automated vehicles starting in 2017. Many observers expect a wide range of models on the market by 2030. It is currently unclear to what extent these will be capable of self-driving in all circumstances.

A potential benefit of more automated driving is improved road safety, as most crashes involve human error. However, 99.9 per cent of driving by humans involves no crashes. The test for autonomous cars will be how well they can replicate the crash-free performance of human drivers. Results from early prototypes are promising, but new types of crashes may emerge, for example, during hand-over of control.

Autonomous driving may involve different technological configurations. Some rely on greater connectivity between cars and between cars and infrastructure, involving the development of common communication protocols and investment in new f infrastructure, while others rely on vehicle-mounted sensors and require little infrastructure investment.

Full automation can be reached via two development paths: by traditional car manufacturers gradually improving automation in conventional vehicles, enabling humans to shift more of the driving tasks to these systems; or by introducing cars without a human driver in limited contexts, such as particular routes and low-speed operations, and then gradually expanding use.

Many jurisdictions have passed or are considering rules to enable the testing, licensing and operation of autonomous vehicle prototypes, but no evidence is available of authorities developing regulatory approaches for such vehicles in the context of actual use cases or business models that could result from large-scale deployment of highly autonomous vehicles, such as the provision of quasi-public transport or taxi-like operations.

The uncertainty about the path vehicle automation will take will surely complicate the regulatory task, although some regulatory flexibility seems desirable - for instance allowing restricted uses, such as low speed urban operation or motorway platooning, before implementing a blanket set of rules.

Changes in the insurance regime will also be needed if the driving task is incrementally shifted from humans to machines, as liability remains an important barrier for the manufacturers of autonomous vehicles.

The ITF is calling on regulators and developers to actively plan to minimise legacy risks, claiming that the first generations of automated cars will still be on roads years after they have become outdated. Both regulators and developers should limit the physical risk presented by legacy vehicles - through monitoring, over-the-air updates and even virtual recalls. Designing vehicles for future system upgrades, such as the addition of sensors, may also help reduce legacy risks.

Related Content

  • October 29, 2014
    ITF Corporate Partnership Board projects highlight ways forward
    The findings of the first four projects launched by the ITF Corporate Partnership Board (CPB), the organisation's platform for engaging with the private sector, have been announced. CPB projects are designed to enrich policy discussion with a business perspective. They are launched in areas where CPB member companies identify an emerging issue in transport policy or an innovation challenge to the transport system. Led by ITF, work is carried out in collaborative fashion in working groups consisting of CP
  • February 1, 2012
    Legalities of in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures
    Paul Laurenza of Dykema Gossett PLLC discusses the paths which lawmakers may go down on the route to making in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures a reality. The question of whether or not to mandate in-vehicle systems for safety and other applications is a vexed one. There is a presumption on some parts that going down the road of forcing systems' fitment is somehow too domineering or restricting. Others would argue that it is the only realistic way of ensuring that systems achieve widespread d
  • March 17, 2017
    Europe’s road safety gains have stagnated EU
    Europe will fail to meet its road death targets as enforcement budgets are slashed and drivers face an epidemic of distractions. The European Union will not achieve its aim of halving the number of people killed on its roads each year by 2020, delegates to Tispol’s (the organisation of European traffic police) annual conference in Manchester were told. “The target will be missed because there was only a 17% decrease in road fatalities across Europe between 2010 and 2015 when [the rate of reduction] should h
  • February 1, 2012
    Cooperative systems and privacy not mutually exclusive
    Are co-operative systems and personal privacy mutually exclusive? Not necessarily, says Neil Hoose. But the more advanced the application, the greater the concession of privacy may have to become. ITS Stockholm in 2009 and the Cooperative Mobility Showcase event which took place alongside Intertraffic in Amsterdam in March this year both featured live, on-street demonstrations of safety and driver information applications that used Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications,