Prof Siddartha Khastgir, Head of Safe Autonomy at WMG, University of Warwick, said:
‘‘I am thrilled that the Automated Vehicle (AV) Bill has received Royal Assent today. The Bill (now Act) has laid a sound regulatory foundation for the AV industry in the UK. This is a first but important step to introducing AVs safely to the UK’s roads.
“I support the government’s ambition that AVs should be as safe as a careful and competent human driver; we therefore, urge the government to undertake swift work on the secondary legislation with a more robust focus and detailed definition of the performance requirements, keeping safety as our highest priority going forward. This will also provide certainty and clarity for technology developers and the AV industry. WMG will continue to work with the UK’s policymakers and provide research evidence to underpin AV policies, including the secondary legislation.
“At WMG, we have also been advocating for ‘informed safety’, which means that users understand the limitations and capabilities of the technology and can use AVs within this safety limit. I am glad that the Act has a strong focus on tackling misleading marketing of AVs. Information about self-driving vehicles should be communicated precisely and transparently to the public so everyone feels safe and confident when engaging with AVs. The public is core to this technology: if they don’t trust it, they will never use it.
“To bring the public on this self-driving journey and bridge the knowledge gap, the Partners for Automated Vehicle Education United Kingdom (PAVE UK) was co-founded earlier this year by WMG, the Department for Transport, the Department for Business and Trade, the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles and Transport for West Midlands to deliver accurate and inclusive public awareness and education programmes on self-driving technology.
“WMG will continue to work closely with the government and the eco-system to help set strong performance requirements, ensuring the safe deployment of self-driving vehicles on the UK’s roads, and enabling the country to be the hub of this transformational transport technology.’’
Note to editors
Automated Vehicles Bill: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3506
Organisations and schools wishing to participate in the programmes can contact [email protected].
Intelligent vehicles are transforming the future of transport mobility and providing more accessible and inclusive transport options for the public.
The emerging connected and automated mobility (CAM) technology is the heart of the UK’s transport innovation. It could save about 4000 lives, prevent 60,000 serious road accidents, and deliver more than £65 billion in economic benefits annually to the country. To deploy CAM technology on the road, it needs to be proven safe.
Additional quotes:
Tara Andringa, Executive director, PAVE UK said:
“When PAVE was founded in 2019, it was a bet on the power of knowledge: we believed that if the public understands the facts of autonomous vehicles, we will see greater public trust in this incredibly promising technology. Our campaign both seeks to demystify automated vehicles– to explain how the technology works – and to help the public understand how these technologies could help to improve the safety, efficiency, and sustainability of our transportation system.
“While countries and regions have adopted different regulatory approaches to automated vehicles, the challenge of AV education is global in nature. Given the tremendous leadership from the UK both in its approach to AV policy and to civic engagement on the technology, we are incredibly excited for the influential role PAVE UK will play in leading public education. The PAVE ecosystem is thrilled for the launch of PAVE UK, and we will work together to build an engagement campaign that will create a template for AV education worldwide.”
About WMG
WMG is a world leading research and education group, transforming organisations and driving innovation through a unique combination of collaborative research and development, and pioneering education programmes.
As an international role model for successful partnerships between academia and the private and public sectors, WMG develops advancements nationally and globally, in applied science, technology and engineering, to deliver real impact to economic growth, society and the environment.
WMG’s education programmes focus on lifelong learning of the brightest talent, from the WMG Academies for Young Engineers, degree apprenticeships, undergraduate and postgraduate, through to professional programmes.
An academic department of the University of Warwick, and a centre for the HVM Catapult, WMG was founded by the late Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya in 1980 to help reinvigorate UK manufacturing and improve competitiveness through innovation and skills development.
About PAVE UK
PAVE UK aims to bring the conversation about automated vehicles (AVs) to the public so that future users and technology developers can play a role in shaping our future.
By arranging education and engagement programmes around AVs, our goal is to increase the public’s awareness of the capabilities and limitations of the technology and build up societal acceptance and trust in this new transport innovation. We also aim to develop a correct user attitude to foster the safe deployment of AVs.
We strongly believe that by fully and transparently equipping the public with CAM technology knowledge, we could then achieve the potential benefits of the technology.
Media contact:
Annie Slinn
Communications Officer (Sciences)
[email protected]
Gabbie Lau
WMG Marketing and Communications Officer (Verification and Validation Research Group)
[email protected]
