RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding said that in dense urban environments “people moving around unpredictably” will present safety challenges for autonomous vehicles. He added that, with private cars spending the vast majority of their time stationary, there may be little benefit to “thinking about autonomy simply as something that is the next generation of cars”.

“We need to be thinking more about commercial applications,” he told the event organised by the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum.

For example he suggested that autonomy could help to reduce operating costs for vehicle fleets, including those delivering goods which “are very often sticking to a regularly traversed, pre-determined route, that can be intensively digitally mapped”.

“We could be thinking of getting away from deliveries happening during the times when the rest of us are moving around and perhaps have stuff coming into our high streets at night, quietly, in vehicles that don’t have to be driven.”

This would require some “joined up thinking” to allow delivery vehicles to unload automatically at retail premises, he noted. Refuse collection could be another good use of autonomous vehicle technology.

Steve also suggested that automated buses may provide an opportunity to remove the driver and reintroduce conductors on services. “We are all thinking at the moment about how we can make our streets and our cities safer in the evening and at night time,” he said. “Would we feel safer if a night bus didn’t have a driver but did have a conductor in amongst the passengers?”

During the same session at the event, vehicle manufacturer Scania’s senior vice president for autonomous solutions Håkan Schildt pointed out that making buses autonomous could mean it is economically viable to introduce more frequent, smaller services to routes, which would be perceived by users as close to ‘on demand’.

Transport for London’s transport innovation director Michael Hurwitz emphasised a need for “people centric, inclusive design” to underpin the roll out of autonomous vehicles.

“It would be a fantastic outcome if these technologies allow the less able to remain socially and economically active,” he said. But it would be a bad outcome if this leads to cluttered pavements, people fearful of traversing the roads and frankly the human element being edged out by the technological one.”

(Photograph: Keolis / Navya)