Safety of Future Mobility Systems: Research Priorities

The Smart Mobility Living Lab: London held a workshop on the safety of future mobility Systems in order to produce a research roadmap for the use of government and industry stakeholders and research funders.

There is a strong expectation on the part of the public that the introduction of automated vehicle systems will improve safety beyond the level achieved by humans. Yet humans are highly capable and on average at least 250 million km are driven for each fatal collision. Automated driving systems are not capable of performance at this level across the wide range of real-world conditions and further research is needed before the human benchmark can be surpassed.

There are considerable challenges to be tackled across many research domains including sensing and control systems, big data analytics, human factors, automation, road and city infrastructure. Research needs range from new basic research to real-world applications. Despite the value in a coordinated approach to research current funding is fragmented and fails to integrate basic research with future applications.

Since 2015 over £250 million has been invested into industry-led R&D but the academic sector has fallen behind and challenges that need basic research or independent leadership are not well-addressed. This will constrain the development and application of future mobility systems.

The workshop comprised scene setting podium presentations and round table discussions: There were guiding presentations from research funding organisations as well as presenters from the academic research sector that offered information about current challenges. It also included presentations from the newly developed Smart Mobility Living Lab in London (SMLL) and the Human Factors Research Lab (HFRL) at Loughborough University.  

Presentations