Skip to main content

Government must broaden focus on CAV, says House of Lords

A new report by the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee says the government should broaden its focus so work on connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) benefits all sectors and not just road vehicles. The report, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The future? also states: While we cannot say with any certainty what the impact on congestion will be, it is possible to imagine a situation of total gridlock as CAV crawl around city centres. It is important the right policy decisions relating to C
March 15, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
A new report by the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee says the government should broaden its focus so work on connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) benefits all sectors and not just road vehicles.

The report, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The future? also states: While we cannot say with any certainty what the impact on congestion will be, it is possible to imagine a situation of total gridlock as CAV crawl around city centres. It is important the right policy decisions relating to CAV are made in order to reduce the likelihood of this occurring.

It also found the main social, behavioural and ethical questions relating to autonomous cars remain largely unanswered.

The report notes that, as automotive manufacturers and new entrants carry out their own research and development for fully automated cars, the Government should not invest heavily or lead in this area but should continue to invest in the fundamental scientific research that underpins CAV.

Related Content

  • March 12, 2012
    Predicting the future for video camera systems
    Jo Versavel, Managing Director of Traficon, talks about near-term trends in video camera systems. Jo Versavel starts by making one thing clear: long-term forecasts as to what the future holds for video-based traffic monitoring are to all intents and purposes meaningless. The state of the art is developing so fast that in reality it's impossible to say where we'll be in 10 years' time, says the Managing Director of Traficon. In his opinion making firm predictions even five years out is too ambitious, whereas
  • January 9, 2018
    Making the most of Michigan
    Michigan DoT’s Kirk Steudle takes time out from the ITS World Congress in Montreal to talk to Colin Sowman. Thirty years ago, a professional engineer named Kirk Steudle joined Michigan Department of Transportation (MDoT). Today he’s the state transportation director, responsible for more than 16,000km (10,000 miles) of state highways (including 4,000 bridges), some 2,500 employees and a budget of more than $4 billion. We caught up with Steudle during the ITS World Congress in Montreal and asked how he
  • August 18, 2015
    Inrix aids authorities in dealing with data
    New traffic data products and services have been launched to aid transport and urban planners and business with detailed intelligence on journey patterns, reports Jon Masters. Manual travel surveys ought soon to become a thing of the past for transport planners and the business community. The technology now exists for getting sophisticated levels of traffic and trip data from connected vehicles. Cars and commercial fleets carrying a GPS device, or a mobile phone or smartphone are the sources of the informat
  • February 21, 2018
    Autonomous vehicles, smart cities: moving beyond the hype
    There is a lot of excited chatter about autonomous vehicles – but 2getthere’s Robbert Lohmann suggests we might need to take a step back and look realistically at what is achievable. You might be surprised that the chief commercial officer of a company delivering autonomous vehicles would begin an article with the suggestion that we need to get past the hype. And yet I do; because we have to, and urgently so. The hype prevents the development of autonomous vehicles that address actual transit needs. And