There are also issues around legislation. It is currently illegal to drive a car that a human is not controlling. So the legislation needs to be changed before fully autonomous cars can hit the roads. In South Australia the state government was one of the first to introduce the changes required for autonomous/ driverless vehicles to be able to be driven on our roads legally.

Another issue is around public acceptance. While driverless cars might sound exciting, would you feel safe in one? And whose fault is it if something goes wrong? If there is an accident, who will the car try to protect, the occupant or the pedestrians about to be hit?

Autonomous vehicle trials are a good way of getting these vehicles accepted by the public. Flinders University is looking at trialling an autonomous bus to link its Tonsley and Bedford Park campuses, which could also provide links to Flinders Medical Centre, Clovelly Park and Tonsley train stations and Marion shopping centre. The aim of this and other trials should be to gain acceptance of these sorts of technologies. Given all these integration and acceptance issues, there needs to be a degree of coordination to ensure that all vehicles are complying and performing in ways we expect.

To this end ARRB Group has taken the lead in starting the Australian Driverless Vehicle Initiative (ADVI), which has a vision to accelerate the safe and successful introduction of driverless vehicles onto Australian roads.

Currently there are about 30 stakeholders that have joined the initiative, including Flinders, in order to achieve the common vision. ARRB together with the South Australian Government hosted the International Conference on Driverless Vehicles in Novemeber 2015, which also saw the first trial of autonomous vehicles on the southern expressway in Adelaide.

So within the next 10 to 20 years — which is only a few vehicle model cycles — we should see changes in laws, implementation of C‐ITS in cars and roads, and many more trials of autonomous vehicle features and vehicles before we see their widespread uptake on Australian roads.

The last thing we would want is for overseas autonomous/driverless vehicles to come to Australia and have these features turned off because we don’t have the appropriate integration technologies available or public acceptance.

QUESTION

What additional steps can vehicle manufacturers take to convince stakeholders and decision‐makers that driverless cars are the way of the future?