Skip to main content

Zenzic identifies ‘golden threads’ to accelerate AV roll-out

A UK organisation has identified 500 ‘milestones’ to be passed in order to get connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs) on the road in numbers by 2030. Zenzic, which was set up by government and industry to coordinate a national platform for testing and developing C/AVs, has launched the UK Connected and Automated Mobility Roadmap to 2030. It identifies six ‘golden threads’ which highlight areas dependent on cross-industry collaboration to make self-driving services accessible to the public by the end of
September 12, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

A UK organisation has identified 500 ‘milestones’ to be passed in order to get connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs) on the road in numbers by 2030.

Zenzic, which was set up by government and industry to coordinate a national platform for testing and developing C/AVs, has launched the UK Connected and Automated Mobility %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external Roadmap false https://zenzic.io/roadmap/ false false%> to 2030.

It identifies six ‘golden threads’ which highlight areas dependent on cross-industry collaboration to make self-driving services accessible to the public by the end of the next decade.

Top of the list is cyber resilience, with Zenzic suggesting that one major goal must be “to focus on resilience in the event of a cyber failure or threat rather than trying to build an unbreakable system”.

Legislation and regulation, public acceptability, infrastructure and safety – including the sharing of safety critical data vehicle-to-vehicle – are among the other key areas it identifies. Many of these are inter-dependent, such as the clear link between AV safety and whether people are going to be confident about using them.

“Societal outcomes must be at the centre of our planning,” Zenzic says. “To date, a vehicle-centric focus has been adopted to progress self-driving technology.” Instead, the focus should be on “thinking today about how technology and services will benefit society at large in 2030”.

The document goes through what is required in four main sections - society and people, vehicles, infrastructure and services – and in particular highlights the role of cybersecurity, saying that the UK is “at the forefront” of this technology, on which “half of the roadmap” depends.

Collaboration is the key, the roadmap insists: “If all the activity in the roadmap was scheduled sequentially with no parallel efforts, it would take until 2079 for the UK to benefit from self-driving vehicles on the roads.”

To speed things up, there must be cooperation between industry, academia and government in the UK. The document suggests 2025 will mark the ‘tipping point’ when the UK “switches gears from trial and development of the technology to the scaling up of its deployment”.

Thereafter, “advances in vehicle licencing, vehicle insurance and a tidal change in desirability in the public eye” means that more commercial passenger services will emerge.

Related Content

  • November 15, 2018
    Bird enables reports of poorly parked and damaged e-scooters
    Bird is to roll out an app feature which allows people to report poorly parked or damaged electric scooters to the company. It is an attempt to solve one of the biggest bugbears surrounding the deployment of scooters and dockless bikes – the issue of what happens when users abandon or abuse the vehicles. Bird says the app’s new ‘community mode’ will improve parking and safety in the cities where it operates, such as Portland and Salt Lake City. The company will use reports to reposition poorly parked e-
  • February 14, 2018
    SwRI sponsors ITS America with $1,000 student essay competition
    Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is inviting U.S. students to take part in an essay competition to share their visions for the future of transportation with a $1,000 (£720) prize and a trip to ITS America 2018, in Detroit, from the 4-7 June. It is aimed at providing students an opportunity to apply their knowledge in a thought-provoking manner. The topic, ‘How do you envision disruptive consumer technology will affect transportation systems over the next 10 years?’ is open to transportation, engineering
  • September 23, 2019
    ITS European Congress: call for contributions
    Ertico – ITS Europe is calling for session proposals and papers for the 14th ITS European Congress, which takes place in Lisbon, Portugal on 18-20 May 2020. Themed ‘ITS: The Game Changer’, the Congress will look in particular at data, focusing on areas such as connected and automated mobility, and new mobility services, as well as transport network design and operations. A welcome message from European Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, explains: “The Congress will also specifically look at other to
  • January 31, 2018
    Polis: the role of cities and regions on road vehicle automation
    Local and regional authorities and public transport providers need to play a more prominent role in the development of policy around autonomous vehicles (AVs), according to a new paper from Brussels-based Polis. Called Road Vehicle Automation and Cities and Regions, the study aims to raise awareness of AV developments and their potential mobility impact among city and regional administrations and to assist them in setting transport policies. In addition, Polis intends to increase awareness of transport