The big question around self-driving cars, for many people, is: When will the technology be ready? In other words, when will autonomous vehicles be safe enough to operate on their own? But there has been far less attention paid to two equally important questions: When will the driving environment be ready to accommodate self-driving cars? And where will this technology work best?
To Make Self-Driving Cars Safe, We Also Need Better Roads and Infrastructure
The big question around self-driving cars, for many people, is: When will the technology be ready? But there are two equally important questions that we should be asking: When will the driving environment be ready to accommodate self-driving cars? And where will this technology work best? Self-driving cars are the most challenging automation project ever undertaken. Driving requires a great deal of processing and decision making that must be automated, and making self-driving systems safe also means accounting for many unpredictable external factors and changing the driving environment to accommodate them. The onboard technology is developing rapidly, but we’re entering a transition stage in which we need to think carefully about how it will interact with human drivers and the wider driving environment.