VEHICLE & FLEET SAFETY
“AS WITH MANY MAJOR
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES, IT IS THE
ABILITY TO COLLECT AND ACT ON REAL-TIME DATA THAT CAN HUGELY BENEFIT ROAD USERS.”
However, Andrew Ashby believes that driverless trucks have the potential to save lives by being connected to both other vehicles and their immediate environment. “Autonomous trucks will facilitate the management of lane occupancy on motorways as well as tracking freight and alerting drivers to updates on the latest road conditions,” he said. As with many major technological advances, it is this ability to collect and act on real-time data that can hugely benefit road users.
Kevin Curran points to the success of Google’s self-driving car as proof that the technology is safe – to date, the company’s driverless vehicles have travelled over 700,000 miles without any collisions. “Ultimately, we can expect few traffic accidents, due to an autonomous system’s increased reliability and faster reaction time compared to human drivers,” he commented.
But research into the safety of driverless cars has highlighted that these vehicles might not be able to prevent all collisions. In a recent whitepaper, researchers Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute stressed that not all road traffic collisions are caused by drivers. If someone stepped out in front of a car with such a short gap that the brakes could not possibly stop
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the car in time, a driverless car would be unlikely to prevent a collision.
Another safety concern about driverless vehicles is their vulnerability to cyber attacks. Kevin Curran explained: “There is of course a worry about hackers controlling vehicles in different scenarios such as having fun with the routes being taken, disabling the vehicles ignition, and overriding braking systems,” he said.
“PROPONENTS OF
DRIVERLESS TRUCKS MAINTAIN THAT
THEY WILL MAKE TRANSPORTING
GOODS BY ROAD MORE EFFICIENT.”
“A risk associated with rolling out technology in vehicles as opposed to other platforms (e.g. homes, offices) is the potential of distraction leading to accidents due to poor design or malfunctions in the new product.”
Yet, there are ways vehicle manufacturers can safeguard driverless trucks. “Rigorous design processes and a better review of these processes will be essential for the enhancement of the security of the
trucks. In addition, a cash injection is necessary in order to ensure the best assets are available to overcome any hacking dangers.”
An issue for fleet managers in particular will be how to manage driverless trucks from remote central control rooms. Curran imagines a cloud system that will not only keep track of each vehicle, but will also check and update the trucks on traffic volume, parking information, weather reports and other vital information.
“To make this happen we need infrastructures and standard protocols that will allow vehicles, devices and people to communicate with a central processing system. Currently, traffic delays mean financial losses, frustration, delays, missed opportunities and sometimes danger. The new landscape of transportation systems points to flexible routes mapped by algorithms that can considerably improve mobility,” Curran explained.
Clearly, we have a long way to go before such a major infrastructure is put in place, if it ever comes to fruition at all. But, whichever side of the fence you land on, there are people out there working on making self-driving fleets a commonplace reality. Whether or not they will take off – and whether they’ll improve or threaten fleet safety – remains to be seen.
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