Tag: Transport Committee

Self-driving vehicles: Legislation needed, says Commons committee

Westminster’s Transport Committee has published its report on the future of self-driving vehicles (SDVs) and how the Government should approach their introduction to the UK’s roads.

The cross-party Committee makes a number of recommendations on how regulations should be updated to tackle concerns about safety and security, dilemmas over legal liability, as well as infrastructure that will be needed to accommodate their introduction.

Transport Committee Chair Iain Stewart MP said: “Thanks to the energy and creativity of the self-driving vehicles sector, the UK has a head start in developing a vision for how SDVs could be introduced. The Government’s strategy is one this Committee broadly welcomes.

“Self-driving vehicles are a great British success story in the making and we have a competitive advantage over many other countries. But all that hard work could be at risk if the Government doesn’t follow through and bring forward a Transport Bill in the next Parliamentary session, before the next general election.  

“Widespread take-up of SDVs faces various hurdles, including public confidence in their safety, security and their potential to have knock-on impacts on other road users. If the Government is going to meet its ambitions for self-driving vehicle deployment these knotty issues need to be addressed.  

“We believe the Government should take a cautious, gradual approach, with SDV technologies only initially introduced in well-defined contexts, or else we risk unintended consequences.”

Government urged to legislate

The Committee heard that current laws for SDVs are archaic and limiting, especially concerning testing and legal liability. Witnesses told us the sector is “crying out” for regulation. We commend the work of the Law Commissions and the Government in devising a new legal framework, Connected & Automated Mobility 2025.

That framework has broad support, albeit with more detail needed in some areas. This makes it disappointing that the Government has not committed to legislating in this Parliament to put this framework in place.

The SDVs sector is a British success story, and the UK has a competitive advantage that we must maintain. The Committee urges Government to pass comprehensive legislation in the next parliamentary session to put in place the robust regulatory framework it promised.

This should cover vehicle approvals, liability for accidents, cybersecurity, and the use of personal data. Failing to do so will do significant and lasting damage both to the UK’s SDVs industry and the country’s reputation as a trailblazer.

Government’s definition of safe ‘too weak and too vague’

While it is widely assumed that SDVs will prove safer than human drivers, this is not a given. The Committee heard that optimistic predictions often rely on SDVs becoming widely used on UK roads, which could be decades away, or assertions about human error that ignore other risks.

Safety must remain the Government’s overriding priority as SDVs encounter real-world complexity. Given this, MPs question the Government’s proposed ‘safety ambition’ – that self-driving vehicles will be “expected to achieve an equivalent level of safety to that of a competent and careful human driver” – believing it is “too weak and too vague”. The Government should set a clearer, more stretching threshold.

Greater automation will reduce time spent driving, leading to concerns that drivers may become less practised and therefore less skilled over time. Conversely, the requirement for drivers to be ready to take manual control of a vehicle means a risk of facing challenging scenarios with little notice.

The Committee recommends that Government should set out a strategy for the future of human driving in a world of SDVs. This should include possible changes to driving tests and a plan to ensure all drivers fully understand SDVs. The Committee also argues this should not impose new responsibilities on other road users and pedestrians or make them less safe.

Cybersecurity, road worthiness and legal liability

SDVs pose cybersecurity risks because of their connected rather than automated capabilities. This poses new dangers, which the law must evolve to meet. A safety-led culture will require wide access to data.

Ensuring SDVs are roadworthy will be more complicated than for conventional vehicles as there is more that can go wrong. Legal liability also becomes more complex as it is shared between owner and vehicle software operators.

This may cause problems for the insurance industry. The Government explained broadly how its new regulatory regime will work but accepted that more thinking was needed about how this will work in practice.  

The Committee urges the Government to take a lead on these issues.

What infrastructure will be needed?

Self-driving vehicles will need well-maintained roads – an issue many road users already feel should be a high priority – as well as signage, nationwide connectivity, and up-to-date digital information about the road network.

While some steps have been taken towards this by the Government and public bodies, these preparations are too siloed and divorced from broader planning.

If the Government is serious about SDVs it should ensure meeting their needs is an integral part of future infrastructure strategy.

How could SDVs be used?

The Committee heard there is a range of possible uses for SDVs, including with HGVs, buses, taxis and private cars. It believes that, in time, SDVs have the potential to improve connectivity and provide significant benefits for safety and productivity in industries such as logistics.

However, the Government must take a cautious, gradual approach with the technology introduced only in well-defined and appropriate contexts. As such, the Committee broadly welcomes the Government’s strategy set out in August 2022.

However, without careful handling, there are concerns that SDVs could worsen congestion and exacerbate inequalities in transport access if, for example, self-driving private hire vehicles are unable to offer the same assistance to disabled people as human-driven ones.

Government must ensure the introduction of SDVs is responsive to the wider population and meets the UK’s transport policy objectives, which are the subject of a separate inquiry by the Transport Committee.

Smart motorway rollout to be paused as Government responds to Transport Committee report

  • Rollout of new All Lane Running smart motorway schemes will be paused until five years of safety data available 
  • Current stretches of smart motorway to be further upgraded with best-in-class technology and resources 
  • £900 million commitment to ensure drivers feel safe and confident, including extra £390 million to install additional emergency areas

The rollout of new smart motorway schemes will be paused until a full five years’ worth of safety data is available, as the Department for Transport invests £900 million to improve safety on existing All Lane Running (ALR) motorways.

In line with the Transport Committee’s most recent recommendations, the rollout of new ALR smart motorways will be paused until a full five years’ worth of safety data becomes available for schemes introduced before 2020. After this point, the Government will assess the data and make an informed decision on next steps.

Although available data shows smart motorways are comparatively the safest roads in the country in terms of fatality rates, while their rollout is paused, the UK Government will go further by ensuring current smart motorways without a permanent hard shoulder are equipped with best-in-class technology and resources to make them as safe as possible.

This will include investing £390 million to install more than 150 additional Emergency Areas so drivers have more places to stop if they get into difficulty. This will represent around a 50% increase in places to stop by 2025, giving drivers added reassurance.

The Department for Transport has welcomed the Transport Committee’s report, which endorsed its focus on further upgrading the safety of existing ALR smart motorways rather than reinstating the hard shoulder.

As concluded by the Committee, evidence suggests hard shoulders do not always provide a safe place to stop, and by reducing motorway capacity, they could put more drivers and passengers at risk of death or serious injury if they were to divert onto less safe local roads.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “One of my first actions as Transport Secretary was to order a stocktake of smart motorways and since then, I have worked consistently to raise the bar on their safety. I am grateful to the Transport Committee and to all those who provided evidence for its work.

“While our initial data shows that smart motorways are among the safest roads in the UK, it’s crucial that we go further to ensure people feel safer using them.

“Pausing schemes yet to start construction and making multi-million-pound improvements to existing schemes will give drivers confidence and provide the data we need to inform our next steps. I want thank safety campaigners, including those who have lost loved ones, for rightly striving for higher standards on our roads. I share their concerns.”

National Highways CEO Nick Harris said: “We have listened to public concerns about smart motorways and we are fully committed to taking forward the additional measures the Transport Committee has recommended.

“While we pause those all lane running schemes yet to start construction we will complete the schemes currently in construction, we will make existing sections as safe as they can possibly be and we will step up our advice to drivers so they have all the information they need.

“We are doing this because safety is our absolute priority and we want drivers to not just be safer, but also to feel safe on our busiest roads.” 

Independent road safety campaigner, Meera Naran, whose 8-year-old son Dev, died in a motorway crash on the M6 in 2018, said: “Conventional and smart motorways both have their risks and benefits. I welcome this pause in the rollout of smart motorways which will give us all a positive opportunity to assess the future of our motorway network.

“I’m encouraged by the commitment of £900 million to improve the safety of our motorways, following my campaigning since Dev died. However, I’ll continue to both challenge and work alongside the Department for Transport to ensure even more is done, including calling for legislation to be looked at for Autonomous Emergency Braking and further support for on-going driver education.”

The Government’s response to the Transport Committee builds on the significant progress already made against the Department’s 18-point Action Plan to improve smart motorway safety, announced in March 2020, including adding emergency areas and upgrading cameras to detect Red X offences. 

The measures in the Stocktake and Transport Committee response represent over £900m of improvements in total, including £390m of new money for extra emergency areas, with the remainder of the funding delivering other measures such as Stopped Vehicle Detection and concrete central reservation barriers.

National Highways will also ‘ramp up’ communications so drivers have better information about how to drive on smart motorways. 

While the Department for Transport will be taking forward all the recommendations set out in the Committee’s recommendations, it does not agree with the view that smart motorways were rolled out prematurely or unsafely. All ALR smart motorway schemes are, and will continue to be, subject to high standards of design, risk assessment and construction, followed by detailed monitoring and evaluation once opened to traffic. 

While further data is being collected, National Highways will continue work to complete schemes that are currently in construction, which will all open with technology in place to detect stopped vehicles.

These schemes are all more than 50% completed and halting progress on them now would cause significant disruption for drivers. Design work will also continue on those schemes already being planned, so they are ready to be constructed depending on the outcome of the pause. No preparatory construction work will take place.

Also, in line with the Committee’s recommendations, National Highways will pause the conversion of Dynamic Hard Shoulder (DHS) motorways – where the hard shoulder is open at busy times – into All Lane Running motorways, while it investigates alternative ways of operating them to make things simpler for drivers. National Highways will also install technology to detect stopped vehicles on these sections.

Global Travel Taskforce: Travel has its wings clipped by cautious UK Government report

Vague and costly recommendations are not enough to reboot aviation and tourism sectors facing another summer without international travel, says Westminster’s Transport Committee.

Lack of clarity

In an analysis of the Government’s Global Travel Taskforce Report, the  Committee concludes that the Report sets out a framework without the detail required to restart international travel. Where detail is provided, the costs may be disproportionate to the risk and add £500 on to the cost of a family of four travelling to the safest parts of the globe where the vaccine roll-out is comparable to the UK.

This distinct lack of clarity does not offer confidence to industry or consumers to plan, invest or recover from the coronavirus pandemic. It leaves the planned safe restart of international travel on May 17 in jeopardy.

The UK’s aviation and tourism sectors were poised to accommodate the public’s desire to travel for business, study, holidays and to visit loved-ones. The UK [aviation industry] has been one of the hardest hit by the pandemic, according to the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation. Another summer without international travel heralds significant economic adversity.

Recommendations

In its Report, the Committee sets out four clear recommended actions for Government:

  • Populate the traffic-light framework with destination countries by May 1 and announce the details in a statement to Parliament.
  • Explain the criteria and mechanism by which countries will move between risk categories by May 1.
  • Offer an affordable testing regime that supports public health and safe travel for everyone by maximising the role of lateral flow tests and ensuring the provision of affordable polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, where required.
  • Act immediately to reduce waiting times and queues at the UK border, including working bilaterally with partner countries to agree mutual recognition of travel health certification, deploying more staff at the border, processing passenger locator forms before passengers arrive in the UK and establishing an efficient system based on a single digital app to process health certification submitted in a range of languages.

Transport Committee Chair, Huw Merriman MP, said: “The aviation and travel sectors were crying out for a functional report, setting out clear rules and offering certainty. This is not it.

“Where the industry craved certainty, the Government has failed to provide it. For UK citizens seeking to travel to the parts of the globe where the vaccine has been delivered as rapidly as the UK, the cost to families from testing could be greater than the cost of the flights. 

“This is a missed opportunity for the Government to capitalise on the UK’s world-leading ‘vaccine dividend’. How can it be right that hauliers, arriving from parts of the globe where the vaccine roll-out is slow, are able to use cheaper lateral flow testing whilst a trip back from Israel requires a PCR test which is four times as expensive?

“This was an opportunity to provide a global lead with standardised rules on international health certification and promoting app-based technology, making the processes at borders more secure and less time consuming. The urgent situation facing the aviation and travel sectors warrants a clear action plan to green light our travel – and the Government must urgently set it out.”

Rory Boland, Editor of Which? Travel, said: “The government is reliant on factors outside its control in restarting international travel, including high and changing infection rates in many countries, so it’s understandable that it cannot provide clarity on where people can go yet. However, it needs to do a better job of fixing the issues it does control.

“Given the government has now dropped its advice not to book holidays, consumers need clarity on how the traffic light system will work and reassurance that last-minute changes won’t leave them facing thousand pound bills – as they did last summer.

“Test costs remain too high and risk pricing millions out of travel, while the problem of passengers queuing for several hours at border control at some UK airports has been going on for months.

“If people are to travel this summer, whether to see loved ones or on holiday, they need the government to make sure it is affordable and safe.”

MPs call for tougher restrictions on phone use in cars

The Government should consider tougher restrictions on driving while using a mobile phone and stricter enforcement of the law to prevent the ‘entirely avoidable’ tragedy of deaths and serious injuries from related crashes on the roads, MPs say.

‘Receiving and sending data equally dangerous’

In Road Safety: driving while using a mobile phone, the Transport Committee says the evidence is clear: using a mobile phone while driving is dangerous, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

MPs call on Government to overhaul current laws on using hand-held mobile devices while driving, to cover use irrespective of whether this involves sending or receiving data.

As evidence shows that using a hands-free device creates the same risks of crashing, the Committee also recommends that Government explores options for extending the ban on hand-held devices to hands-free phones.

In 2017, there were 773 casualties, including 43 deaths and 135 serious injuries, in collisions where a driver using a mobile phone was a contributory factor. The number of people killed or seriously injured has risen steadily since 2011.

Tougher enforcement needed

However, the rate of enforcement has plunged by more than two thirds since 2011. Enforcing the law is essential to ensuring that motorists do not illegally use their mobile phone while driving.  While the Committee welcomes the Government’s review of roads policing and traffic enforcement, the report calls on the Government to work with police to boost enforcement and make better use of technology.

The penalties for using a hand-held mobile phone while driving were increased in 2017 but still do not appear to be commensurate with the risk created and should be reviewed and potentially increased so that it is clear there are serious consequences to being caught, says the Report.

Chair of the Committee, Lilian Greenwood MP, said: “Despite the real risk of catastrophic consequences for themselves, their passengers and other road users, far too many drivers continue to break the law by using hand-held mobile phones.

“If mobile phone use while driving is to become as socially unacceptable as drink driving much more effort needs to go into educating drivers about the risks and consequences of using a phone behind the wheel. Offenders also need to know there is a credible risk of being caught, and that there are serious consequences for being caught.

“There is also a misleading impression that hands-free use is safe. The reality is that any use of a phone distracts from a driver’s ability to pay full attention and the Government should consider extending the ban to reflect this.

“Each death and serious injury which results from a driver using a mobile phone is a tragedy that is entirely avoidable. We need tougher restrictions, better enforcement and more education to make our roads safer for all.”