Driver for Driverless Vehicles?

Today’s Brew 

Imagine driving from Mumbai to Goa and back. It will be an eye-opening trip—when it came to the degree of disconnect in awareness, both cultural and infrastructural.

Looking over these trips, you will find obstacles including cows, horses, and trucks (no surprises there) that show how complicated navigating even the national highway network can get.

It’s tough enough for humans. Now imagine asking a poor machine to drive itself.

Over the past few years, automotive and mapping companies around the world have been racing to dominate the autonomous vehicles, or AV, market. (More specifically, advanced driver-assistance systems, or ADAS in industry-speak.)

Automobile makers and tech companies are hard at work in the US as well as China launching self-driving features in cars and running simulations and extensive trials. 

India, however, is nowhere on the radar, with transport minister Nitin Gadkari publicly stating that the government will not allow AVs. Is this a this is a mistake? Well, we don’t know, the future will tell.

Research shows that the potential impact of autonomous vehicles on the economy, peoples’ productivity, the environment, urban development, and public transportation is nothing to sneeze at. And not to mention road safety—a 2017 report from the road ministry estimates that over 140,000 people died in road accidents in India that year. Letting machines assist in or take over driving can help cut down that number significantly (global studies have found that as many as 90% of accidents are due to human error).

To get there though, it will take time. And lots of it. India needs to get started right now. Especially since Indian conditions pose distinct challenges to driverless vehicles—our highway escapades are a testament to that.

On top of that, the way people use roads is also unpredictably creative sometimes. You often find a pedestrian crossing from a completely unexpected part of the street, or vendors selling toys and towels to vehicles at an intersection, and that delivery executive who needs to make his deadline and so disregards the traffic signal altogether. 

What we stand to gain—or to lose

The biggest benefit of automation is likely safety. One more is productivity—people get more free time after all. (A debatable point)

But the next most important benefit may be environmental. Even though the added weight of AV systems can increase fuel consumption, the “lifetime energy use” and emissions of AVs are 9% lower due to better driving efficiency

Well, if you think the Indian Government should accelerate and step to the game of AV then here is the chance to tweet this to the government and share your views on the same

See you tomorrow with another story