NOVEMBER 2023 AFTERMARKET 23 www.aftermarketonline.net DfT’s two new reports on self-driving public engagement The Department for Transport (DfT) has published two new reports on last year’s Great Self-Driving Exploration. In partnership with Thinks Insight & Strategy, University College London (UCL) and Aurrigo, it held a series of large-scale public engagement events in areas of the country where there had previously been little or no engagement with self-driving vehicles. The first report, “A citizen view of self-driving technology in future transport systems”, largely analysed the responses from a “high exposure audience” of 177 participants. Further feedback came from “medium exposure” and “low exposure” audiences, of 450 and 250 participants respectively. The high exposure participants were shown videos on various aspects of self-driving, and were then asked to design an advert describing self-driving vehicles. The report found: “Broadly speaking, to effectively improve awareness of self-driving vehicles, it was seen as necessary to communicate their advantages over and above traditional humandriven vehicles.” The second, more technical, report, “Understanding emotional responses to self-driving vehicles”, measured excitement and stress using an electrophysiological process to record participants’ brain activity. Interestingly, males tended to show higher levels of ‘Excitement’ than females when on the shuttle, while the opposite was seen for the smaller pod. The report concluded: “These differences will have implications on both engineering and policy choices.” On 4 September, the UK Government announced the recipients of £50m in funding “to cement the UK as the best location in the world to manufacture”. The winners included several major self-driving projects. Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said: “From farm tractors fuelled by hydrogen to rapidcharge first responder motorcycles, these projects receiving funding today show we are not short of innovators in this country. “By supporting growth in the industries of the future, including through better regulation, we are delivering on our plan to get the economy growing and make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business.” In addition to 12 mainly clean fuel-related projects to be funded via the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) announced £18.5m in joint government and industry funding for 13 new self-driving projects. Designed to address critical technology gaps, enhance safety and security, improve performance and reliability, and create scalable opportunities both domestically and globally, these connected and automated mobility (CAM) projects will be delivered in partnership with Zenzic and Innovate UK. The winning projects are, in alphabetical order: AIM-DBW Autonomous Cargo CERTUS DeepSafe DriveSafeAI Driven By Sound evolvAD High-Performance Imaging Radar (HPIR) Photonic Inertial Sensors for Automotive (PISA) Sim4CAMSens StreetCAV Systems for Autonomy in Fail Operational Environments (SAFE) Torque Overlay Automated Steering Technology (TOAST) Decarbonisation and Technology Minister, Jesse Norman, said: “Self-driving vehicles have the potential to transform how we get around, making journeys safer, more convenient and more accessible while also creating skilled jobs. These grant winners underline how the UK is at the cutting edge in developing automated technologies that are not only innovative but have safety at their heart.” Meanwhile, Minister for Industry and Economic Security Nusrat Ghani, visited Wayve, one of the 43 British companies involved. “The automotive industry will go through a self-drive revolution = huge economic growth & new jobs,” she said on Twitter (X). Alex Kendall, CEO of Wayve, added: “Leveraging AI, we have the chance to bring the benefits of self-driving vehicles to everyone’s door. But first, securing trust in AI is paramount. DriveSafeAI will give the public and policymakers confidence in this technology, which has the potential to revolutionise transport.” Congratulations to TOAST for the best acronym, and we will follow all of these exciting projects with interest. Self-driving gets healthy slice of UK manufacturing £50m Follow us on Facebook/aftermarket magazine
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