Data is the key to the safe deployment of automated and self-driving vehicles, said Hon. Paul Brubaker, president and chief executive of the Alliance for Transportation Innovation, during a subcommittee hearing yesterday.
“We are recommending the implementation of a national self-driving data repository,” Brubaker said. “We envision that this is a highly secured, opt-in data repository with a number of positive incentives that can be leveraged in a way that can encourage participation with incentives, like indemnification or rapid regulatory approvals. Such a repository will help us better understand safety issues and help us identify real and potential emerging issues and inform regulators, the industry, and the public based on real-time data.”
The hearing — entitled “The Automated and Self-Driving Vehicle Revolution: What is the Role of Government?” — focused on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s recently issued Federal Automated Vehicles Policy. The DOT released its FVAP on Sept. 20, which includes model state policy, vehicle performance guidance, a discussion of future regulatory tools for congressional consideration, and an assessment of current regulatory tools.
Some of the auto industry will be fully prepared to offer self-driving vehicles to the public, potentially, in a few years, so government leaders must ensure that current regulatory approaches do not constrain the development of these technologies, Brubaker said.
“We’ve got to take care of the data, and we’ve got to learn from the data,” added the Hon. Deborah Hersman, president and CEO of the National Safety Council. “If we don’t have all manufacturers willing to share those lessons learned, we are going to have to have each provider learn the lesson anew each time,” she said.
The industry also needs to view self-driving and automated cars holistically, she said. “Will there be deaths? Absolutely. Things will happen, but that data is incredibly important to how this rolls out and to maintain this confidence going forward,” Hersman said.
Automated and self-driving vehicles may not be safe before being allowed on the road, but real-world effort is the way to demonstrate safety, added Dr. Nidhi Kalra, senior information scientist at RAND Corp. “We should start with real-world testing in low-risk areas — such as operating vehicles in well-maintained areas and at low speeds, then expanding as safety is demonstrated,” she said.
Additionally, data sharing is important, Kalra said. “Developers are already using experiences from one vehicle to improve their fleet, but data sharing across the industry could mean the experiences of every [self-driving] vehicle could improve the entire industry,” she said.