There is a burgeoning volume of literature on autonomous vehicles. We wanted to cut to the chase and identify the most important issues for our clients (especially those in the public sector) to be aware of and addressing.

We have produced a crowd-sourced report that draws upon our thinking across Mott MacDonald globally which we hope will help our clients. There are no glossy images. Please feel free to download the report. We use the shorthand term CAV (Connected Autonomous Vehicle) throughout.

The report covers 10 areas:

1.     How to ensure safe and acceptable rules of the road? – As the learning by doing evolution of CAVs unfolds, local transport systems and the populations they serve will be subject to performance of the new technology that may affect infrastructure design and prioritisation of use and will affect how CAVs interact with other road users. There is a crucial governance role here for transport authorities.

2.     Shaping network efficiency – If CAVs are to be invited into our towns and cities this should be on the understanding that they are used efficiently. The need for strong planning has never been greater – there is the potential for vehicle occupancy levels to increase or decrease. It must be the former with transport authorities seeking to ensure responsible innovation whereby CAVs help fulfil higher-level goals relating to economic, social and environmental wellbeing.

3.     Guarding against adverse consequences for public and sustainable transport – CAVs need to be provided as an accompaniment or enhancement to public transport rather than becoming a personal transport mode that dominates the future of mobility and whose supposed convenience could be a threat to public transport and erode the public health benefits and transport system efficiencies of (power assisted) active travel modes. Transport authorities need to examine how the makeup of transport supply is changing or could be changed and exert influence over the form and function of CAV developments.

4.     Ensuring CAV developments enhance mobility for all – The benefits of CAVs are expected to reach various categories of ‘non drivers’. CAV developments should be encouraged and perhaps obliged to incorporate user-centred participatory design to cater for the range of needs for a heterogeneous travelling public – including accounting for the range in ability and/or means to digitally access CAV-based mobility services.

5.     Identifying infrastructure implications and rethinking asset management – There are interdependencies between CAV developments and associated infrastructure developments and no pre-determined roadmap for the period of transition ahead. Should transport authorities adopt a wait-and-see approach (forcing the CAV technology to cope with existing infrastructure), repurpose the infrastructure or build new, dedicated infrastructure? In any case there is a need for adaptive solutions.

6.     Understanding and influencing acceptability and adoption – People appear, collectively, undecided over whether or not they want or need CAVs in place of manually driven vehicles. Public authorities, vehicle providers, and operators face a challenging journey ahead to show that the hypothetical benefits from CAVs for society can be realised and in a way that is deemed attractive while fostering acceptance and adoption – and negotiating matters of liability when things go wrong.

7.     Managing demand through changing travel behaviour – CAVs could extend the opportunity to ‘drive’ (or be driven) to many more people, potentially enhancing individual convenience. Yet this risks collectively problematic consequences of increased vehicle miles travelled due to removal of driver fatigue, the potential removal of a need to park and the associated costs of doing so, and the empty running of CAVs between rides. Transport authorities will need to identify the most appropriate demand management approaches to avoid rebound effects from the potential benefits offered by CAVs.

8.     Managing the transitional period to a CAV-rich future – It may be tempting to see CAVs as rapidly replacing manually controlled vehicles in a like-for-like substitution. However, the reality may be more convoluted and protracted, involving recognition of changes in demand for travel and competing ideas on how to meet that demand. A notional end state for a CAV-rich future is not clear. Key to managing the transition will be a need to: monitor and understand change in supply and demand as it takes place; horizon scan for signals of future change or influence; ensure unwanted consequences are recognised early, monitored and dealt with; and use these steps to inform longer-term planning and investment.

9.     Handling uncertainty in forward planning mobility – Uncertainty surrounding CAVs and how to respond can be considered a wicked problem: multiple actors offering different perspectives based on different values and with different objectives; and complex relationships between CAV developments and other developments such as in electric vehicles, mobility as a service and a changing society beyond the mobility system itself. Transport authorities need to adopt a participatory ‘decide and provide’ rather than a ‘predict and provide’ approach. A desirable future should be determined with candidate measures to move towards this then identified and stress tested against different plausible future contexts.

10.  Tracking developments through knowledge exchange – Transport authorities and others face a key problem in how to keep abreast of latest thinking concerning CAV developments, how to judge multiple messages from multiple messengers and how to distinguish between signal and noise. We believe the crowd-sourced approach we have taken in our report is part of the solution – it is agile and diverse in its engagement across contexts, experience, expertise and interpretation. This can be accompanied by periodic rapid evidence assessments tailored to the most immediate needs of the players concerned.

Please feel free to download the report and pass it on to others if helpful to do so. And we would love to hear your views – which of these ten areas are most important and/or challenging for your organisation?