Automated vehicles are no longer just a concept coming sometime in the undefined future. With self-driving vehicles set to roll out this year, the research into the safety impact and public perception is stepping up.
Pilots, consultations and safety frameworks are all being developed to prepare for self-driving vehicles operating on real UK roads.
For fleets, that presents a major opportunity, but also a very real challenge.
Because while autonomous vehicles have the potential to reduce collisions, improve efficiency and change the way transport is managed, there is still one significant hurdle to overcome… trust.
What Are The Public Concerns On Autonomous Vehicles?
Public safety concerns remain one of the biggest barriers to wider adoption of self-driving vehicles, something which the industry has been well aware of for the last few years.
Most of us are used to human error on the roads, even if it’s not ideal or always perfect, there is a degree of understanding that comes with driving. The issue is that with autonomous vehicles, there’s an expectation of perfection.
If a human driver makes a mistake, people often see it as unfortunate but familiar, but if a self-driving vehicle makes a mistake, it is likely to be viewed much more critically. Which means that the safety standards for self-driving vehicles need to be even tighter than for ordinary vehicles, particularly in the early stages to build trust and improve public perception.
A fleet operator may be interested in autonomous vehicles from an efficiency point of view, particularly where driver shortages, operating costs and vehicle utilisation are major concerns. But adoption won’t happen at scale unless businesses are confident that the technology is safe, reliable and properly regulated.
It is not just about whether the vehicle can drive itself, that aspect of the technology is almost a given and the standards they’re judged against will be extremely harsh.
Fleet managers will need to understand how the vehicle behaves in complex road environments, how incidents are recorded, who is responsible when something goes wrong and how safety performance is measured over time.
That’s why those initial trials and rollouts are so crucial, with the safety data being logged and giving fleets an impression of what they can expect. If it’s reliable, safe and in line with expectations, then you’ll start to see more and more fleets adopting autonomous vehicles for some aspects of their work.
What Do Fleets Need To Know About Self-Driving Vehicles?
If autonomous vehicles are going to be on the roads and become an option for fleets to roll out, there needs to be laws, processes and safety data to back it up.
That includes ongoing monitoring, real-time evaluation of progress and safety data, and constant access to performance and safety data.
For fleets, that data will be central to the decision-making process.
If a vehicle is involved in a collision, near miss or system failure, operators will need clarity. What happened? Was the vehicle operating autonomously at the time? Was it within its approved operating conditions? Was there any human intervention? Were there software, mapping or sensor issues?
Without clear answers, confidence will quickly erode and confidence in self-driving vehicles won’t develop to where it needs to be if it’s to become the future that the vehicle and technology industry think it will be.
This is where fleet adoption may be more cautious than some expect, with many operators already using vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems. As we all know, moving from assisted driving to true autonomy is a much bigger step and bridging that gap is the challenge.
The businesses most likely to adopt autonomous vehicles successfully will be those that treat them as part of a wider risk management strategy, not simply as a new vehicle procurement decision.
That means understanding the technology, training teams properly, reviewing insurance implications, monitoring vehicle performance and keeping strong audit trails.
More than ever, monitoring and data are going to be crucial, which is where Risk Monitor, Fleet Monitor and Telematics Monitor will prove to be invaluable as fleets look towards the latest advance in technology.
