Survey finds van drivers optimistic about new technology

A new survey from UK insurance website Gocompare.com Van Insurance asked van drivers what they think of the new technology that might affect their business. Safety was a concern when it came to new technology. Over 50 per cent of respondents said they thought futuristic technology might provide a safety risk. This was of particular concern to drivers in both Belfast and Norwich – with 71 per cent of the respondents in those cities naming it as an issue for them. The next most worrying factor for drivers was
April 20, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
A new survey from UK insurance website 5175 Gocompare.com Van Insurance asked van drivers what they think of the new technology that might affect their business.


Safety was a concern when it came to new technology. Over 50 per cent of respondents said they thought futuristic technology might provide a safety risk. This was of particular concern to drivers in both Belfast and Norwich – with 71 per cent of the respondents in those cities naming it as an issue for them.

The next most worrying factor for drivers was the potential for reliance on technology. Almost half said they thought the ease involved in using future van technology would make workers over-reliant on gadgets over their own skills.

Asked what technology would be the most useful for van drivers, only 1.5 per cent were interested in the ability to run apps in their vans, suggesting digital integration isn’t a priority, while other potential inventions such as automatic parking, active window displays and driverless functionality proved more popular.

While automatic parking was indisputably popular, respondents were more conflicted on driverless cars.

But although it made the top three most popular future technology options among van drivers, it was also in the top three for the technology that they felt would have the most negative impact on their business. One in ten said that future technology might be a problem and of them 58 per cent said that they thought it might make their own skills obsolete.

Overall, optimism towards technology is high, with 82 per cent of respondents being interested in at least one of the forms of technology on offer. Forty per cent felt that their efficiency would be increased by the advances and a further 41 per cent were interested in the improvements to their safety as a result of added resources.

Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Saving the world, one parking space at a time
    December 7, 2020
    Donald Shoup, professor of urban planning at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), tells Adam Hill about why parking is too cheap – and how Monopoly could seriously raise its game
    Read More
  • Telvent relocates and takes a global stance on ITS
    March 12, 2012
    Telvent's Manuel Sanchez Ortega, on relocating the company's headquarters to the US and how that fits in the international scheme of things. The change-of-address cards are in the post; Manuel Sanchez Ortega has just moved homes. The domestic upheaval of Telvent's Chairman and Chief Executive comes as a result of the decision to relocate many of the company's headquarter functions from Madrid to Rockville, Maryland in the US. Viewed in the context of its significant recent acquisitions in North America - am
    Read More
  • Mounting benefits of dynamic tolling project
    January 30, 2012
    Wisconsin's four-year HOT lanes pilot project, launched in May 2008, cost US$18.8 million to construct. Halfway into the project, which uses variably priced, or dynamic, tolling to improve highway efficiency, the benefits are mounting. The problem was obvious, and frustrating, to anyone who ever sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on State Route 167 and watched a lone car whiz by every 20 seconds or so in the carpool lane. But for planners at the Washington State Department of Transportation, the conundrum was
    Read More
  • ‘Motorway drivers putting their own and others’ lives at risk’ - IAM
    May 11, 2015
    The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) has discovered that more than 40 per cent of all motorway and major A road lane closures in England in 2014 were caused by 185,457 vehicle breakdowns, 40,192 of which were in a ‘live lane’ i.e., a lane with other moving traffic around it vehicle breakdowns. The information came from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the IAM, which asked for the number of incidences of lane closures on roads managed by Highways England in 2014. In total there were 44
    Read More

Highlighted Content