“Driverless cars take the most unpredictable part of the drive away — the human element”


Algorithms and soſtware help the vehicle/computer figure out what to do next — stop, change lanes, adjust speed, drive — and share information with other automated vehicles to create the most accurate, real-time picture of what’s happening on the road. Underpinning it all is a GPS system that sets the start and end points of the trip. Of course, the last big piece is execution. A team out of


Stanford University has been racing Shelley, its self-driving race car (an Audi TTS), at Thunderhill Raceway north of Sacramento. A collaboration between Stanford’s Dynamic Design Lab and Volkswagen’s Electronics Research Lab, Shelley hits speeds of 120 m.p.h. while soſtware tells it when to brake, turn and accel- erate. “They are driving at the limits of friction and have reached the point where they can match an amateur race-car driver around a track,” says Waslander.


Societal impact Automated Vehicles: The Coming of the Next Disruptive Technology, a report from the Conference Board of Canada in collaboration with Calgary’s Van Horne Institute and CAVCOE, calls on gov- ernments and business to start planning because automated vehicles will change just about everything: infrastructure needs, the nature of jobs, the economy and healthcare. The report anticipates benefits to be as high as $65 billion largely because of significantly fewer traffic collisions, which immediately trans- lates into healthcare, legal and auto-repair savings. The figures are even more staggering in the US, where traffic accidents alone cost almost US$900 billion annually. This may be why the US seems to be preparing more aggressively for a future with driverless cars than Canada, where only Ontario appears to be working on legislation to permit testing of self- driving vehicles. In the US, 17 states have considered self-driving car leg-


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islation. The laws that have been enacted include provisions that view the “operator” of the vehicle as the person who engages the autonomous technology when there is no one in the vehicle. These laws seem to envisage scenarios where the car could be sent to pick someone up, or return home on its own rather than sit in an unsecured parking lot for a long time, such as at the airport. Ultimately, the technology itself will help decide how the law


evolves and how effective the law is in dealing with self-driving vehicles.


Safety Ninety-three percent of traffic collisions involve human error. Computer-driven cars can scan 360 degrees around them, at least 30 times a second, with no distractions. They are more conservative and therefore can be much safer. When car-to-car alert systems are incorporated, automobiles will be able to com- municate dangerous situations to vehicles around them as well as those following. “This will take incredible pressure — both financial and in human terms — off the healthcare system, allowing for a reallocation of resources for hospitals,” says Peter Wallis, president and CEO of The Van Horne Institute. “Driver- less cars take the most unpredictable part of the drive away — the human element.” There is also a scenario being posited that the move to driver-


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less cars will result in more car sharing and fewer cars on the road, leading to less congestion. “There is a general recognition that widespread adoption of driverless vehicles will lead to the emergence of transportation as a service, meaning more people will use cars for a single trip as opposed to owning them,” says Kirk. “Think about how disruptive Uber has been and then take the driver out of the equation.” (Uber is the six-year-old online cab company that has regular car owners and professional taxi drivers providing transport services on demand. It now operates in 56 countries and generated an estimated US$2 billion in gross annual receipts last year.) On the other hand, there may be an increase in the number of cars owned; one you are willing to share and another, your Ferrari or Aston Martin that you keep for yourself. Another alternative would be time-sharing of auto- mobiles, or Uber for cars: simply use your smartphone to target an available “share ride vehicle” near your location and hail it. It’s no surprise Google and Uber have


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both made public how attractive self-driv- ing Uber cars would be. The same goes for the trucking industry. It will be much less costly and more efficient to transport goods


Untitled-1 1 32 | CPA MAGAZINE | JUNE/JULY 2015 5/5/2015 7:52:40 AM


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