Transport operator Stagecoach, bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis Ltd (ADL) and technology firm Fusion Processing are developing the single-deck autonomous bus.

The 12m ADL Enviro200 will be able to operate without a driver in an off-road environment.

The developers also claim that driverless technology will improve safety when driven in manual mode, adding that in the short term, operators will only enable autonomous mode in depots, using it for parking and moving into the fuelling stations and bus washes.

The companies say switching to self-driving vehicles in depots could help improve safety, efficiency and the use of space.

Legal restrictions mean the vehicle will not be used in autonomous mode in passenger service “for some time”, but the autonomy-enabling sensors could nonetheless improve road safety by alerting drivers to cyclists, pedestrians or other vehicles in blind spots.

Ken Scott, group engineering director at ADL, said: “At first, the autonomous Enviro200 will deliver real and demonstrable improvement to efficiency and safety in depots, while taking another significant step on our journey to bringing fully autonomous vehicles to market.”

Thanks to Machinery Market for the original article https://www.machinery-market.co.uk/news/21491/UKs-first-driverless-bus-set-to-roll

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This doesn’t sound so far-fetched considering over 90% of RTAs are caused by driver error. Trusting computers and algorithms with completing millions of journeys each day, however, raises challenging legal and ethical questions.

Determining liability is the cornerstone of the motor insurance market. If an autonomous vehicle carrying a passenger crashes into another car, is the passenger responsible, even though they were not in control? A simple answer to this hypothetical question is that it would be the responsibility of the car manufacturer. But what if it turned out that the owner of the vehicle had failed to keep the tyres at the appropriate pressure or reneged on any other number of maintenance issues, would the driver be at fault then? The pressing question for policymakers and the insurance industry in particular is how to resolve these questions, and this requires a conversation between the public and car manufacturers.

Beyond ethics and issues over liability, putting a major piece of national infrastructure in the hands of computers is a potential cyber security risk. If hacking occurred on a widespread scale of an entire vehicle fleet, the damage could be unprecedented.

Driverless technology is, despite recent strides, still in development. Semi-autonomous vehicles are already on the roads and the path towards fully autonomous vehicles is still a number of years away. However, further hacking incidents involving car manufacturers could make consumers wary about the technology. Alongside the need to better protect against potential hacking, policymakers and the car industry must begin a dialogue with consumers about the ethical considerations around driverless cars. Otherwise, it will not be clear which road we are travelling on.

Credit to: http://www.iloveclaims.com/motor-insurance/driverless-cars-the-road-less-travelled/

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