By Bradley Berman — Lead Editor

Even within the transport industry itself, the terms “self-driving” and “autonomous” are often casually bandied about and used interchangeably, but they do mean different things. A self-driving vehicle (usually a car) can, when clearly instructed, navigate through streets reliably — a similar process to when we instruct a cab driver or ride-hail driver where we want to go. True autonomy, however, requires that cars and drones communicate with one another and with the roadway, generating, sharing and leveraging data within a network. The vehicles then are able to make reliable and sound decisions, thereby achieving profound leaps in efficiency and being able to provide enhanced transportation services.