Look who is in the driver’s seat!

More than a decade ago, Bangkok’s roads used to be choked with peak hour traffic at 7 in the morning. Office goers would take more than a couple of hours to drive into the business district from the suburbs, stuck in a gridlock or in very slow moving traffic. Often, they would be found with an impromptu breakfast or an electric razor on one hand, as the other hand held the wheel to negotiate the next few inches of the road.

Cut to today and we are very nearly facing a similar situation on the roads of most Indian cities. We are yet to truly explore the potential of personal mobility, but we already seem to have maxed out the capacity of our infrastructure. And there are no indicators that there is going to be a dramatic improvement in the infrastructure or a planned, disproportionate increase in public transport.

So, imagine the prospect of stepping into your driverless car, selecting the destination and sitting back with a cup of coffee and the day’s newspaper in your hands while the car takes you there automatically. Tantalising, isn’t it?

With the number of experimental driverless or autonomous cars that are being tested, these vehicles are now past the point of being considered science-fiction. But, how close are they to being reality?

Aside of the potential for a comfy ride and the savings from not having to pay a chauffeur, autonomous cars are fast becoming an attractive option to explore because of the huge improvement in safety that they can offer. In the mature markets of the US and Western Europe, the need for higher driver safety is driving the development of autonomous cars.

More than 90 per cent of all traffic accidents are caused by driver errors. Eliminating or compensating for driver errors or distractions has been the objective for the development of many of the intelligent transportation technologies which have found their way into cars of today (though mostly in the luxury space). The driverless car is a culmination and a combination of many of these technologies, which are currently doing specific tasks like driver drowsiness detection, infra-red night vision assistance, blind-spot and lane-departure warning, GPS, adaptive cruise control and autonomous braking.

Currently driverless cars or self-driving cars, are either prototypes or technology demonstrators, but the companies that have developed them are projecting that they will go ‘mainstream’ by the end of the decade. Roof-mounted radar systems, multiple cameras positioned around the car and a number of additional sensors, which complement the ones that are usually found in regular road-going cars, behave like the eyes of these autonomous cars.

The general logic to autonomous cars is that they will be safer because the intelligent machine’s ability to respond to an emergency is better than the average human being’s reflexes. Endowed with some serious computing power and with intelligent sensing and safety features communicating with each other, the self-driving car is usually capable of avoiding collisions by foreseeing the threat earlier than humans can.

Of course, the technology isn’t perfect yet and the ecosystem that exists in the form of roads, predictability of driver behaviour and availability of road signs are all factors that could affect the performance of self-driving cars. In that context, we wonder how one of these cars would perform in the midst of all the chaos on Indian roads. It would probably stop and flash a ‘404 Error’ sign!

Manufacturers like Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Nissan, BMW, Volvo and GM have all successfully developed and tested autonomous vehicles. The one that has been most in the news recently is not from a car manufacturer; it is Google’s Driverless car.

Autonomous cars are expected to be more successful at improving safety of pedestrians and other urban road users like cyclists, who often victims of accidents caused by driver distraction or oversight. On the highway too, the boost to safety that a driverless car brings with it, especially of it has in-car systems like vehicle to vehicle communication can ensure a safe, disciplined and fast commute.

Safety is a big factor that is driving the development of self-driving cars, what with all the tax payer dollars that is being spent for settling legal claims and reconstructing damaged infrastructure. But, in countries like Japan where extensive testing is on for autonomous cars, the other factor for developing these cars is the ageing population. Driver fatigue sets in earlier amongst older drivers and their reflexes are also not as quick as younger drivers.

There are unanswered questions like who will be held responsible if a driverless car did meet with an accident. And there is the while question about cyber-security and reliability of the electronic systems that these cars will need to use.

Yet, the prospect of these cars being road-legal in a few years time is both exciting and frightening. Exciting for all of us to witness this technological leap and frightening for our tribe – motoring enthusiasts – which would potentially become redundant.

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