Bipartisan support

It has been pleasing to see this report, and its subject matter, receive bipartisan support. Anthony Albanese, the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development, had this to say:

“The transition to driverless cars and heavy vehicles in Australia will take years, but it is critical that governments start planning now so that we can maximise the benefits while mitigating any negative effects.”

“It’s important that all levels of government, along with employers, trade unions and other interested groups, work in a spirit of bipartisanship to make change a positive force for our country.”

“One of our key concerns must be lifting investment in education and training to ensure that as driverless cars eliminate jobs performed by people, the workers are given skills to allow them to move to other jobs.”

Community is crucial

iMOVE CRC welcomes the inquiry and its report. Like many submissions, we contend that community engagement and confidence are crucial elements for the introduction of new technology. Therefore, for Australia to gain early access to the benefits of the new technology it must cultivate community discussion and proactively address community concerns.

Technology trials and public involvement

In this context it was pleasing to see the committee’s support for trials of automated vehicles that would both test and confirm the suitability of the technology to the local situation, and provide some access for the public to experience it.

This thinking was further extended in the inquiry’s recommendation #7 (see the full list of the Committee’s recommendations below) which specifically proposed to trial automated vehicles in public transport applications in both metropolitan and regional locations.

With an eye to the future effectiveness of the Australian economy, the inquiry also made several recommendations to proactively secure benefits from the new technology.

Recommendation #9 seeks to ensure that the benefits of automated vehicles are available across Australia, including regional Australia.

Recommendation #5 encouraged development of a strategy to ensure that Australia is best placed to exploit emerging opportunities.

iMOVE CRC’s interest and expertise

Being an organisation established to do industrially-relevant research, iMOVE CRC is particularly interested in the issues that the inquiry recommends be attended to. These include:

Addressing potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities

Developing ownership, use and security frameworks for automated vehicle data

Exploration of how automated vehicles could meet needs of people with disabilities, older Australians and those in regional and rural areas.

National consistency in relation to automated vehicles for road infrastructure (e.g. signs and markings), regulations and policy settings.

Clarifying legal liability and insurance implications

Safety and productivity … now

iMOVE CRC is keen to work with its participants and industry stakeholders to ensure that these issues are addressed. We see many benefits arising from highly automated vehicles and believe we should encourage their adoption as quickly as is reasonably possible.

At the top of the list are safety and productivity. Accidents and time spent manually driving vehicles place huge burdens on our standard of living and the economy. Automated vehicles will not be a silver bullet to solve these issues, but they will usher in new systems and processes that are intrinsically safer, more reliable, and productive.

These systems will lower costs, improve accessibility and improve the lifestyle of all who use them. We should not only welcome automated vehicles with open arms but should actively seek to deploy them wherever possible.