The timescales for mass autonomous driving remain unclear. What we know is that this is not an ‘if’ scenario, merely a question of when, and in the meantime the question is one of transitioning from ADAS to fully autonomous vehicles. We’ll be exploring legal issues, questions of liability and responsibility, the benefits to society, and some of the possible shocks that could develop.

We will also explore auto industry updates on how autonomous car systems are coming to fruition, based on test and evaluation programs, reviews of pilot projects, lessons learned and plans for larger-scale deployments.

This stream will also explore how mass autonomous vehicle deployment could spell the end for high-speed rail and we’ll be asking if the investment in expensive long-distance rail projects would be better spent on developing ultra-high-speed highways for urban and inter-urban platooning, and on-demand underground and surface autonomous vehicle networks.

A theme of this session will be why autonomous cars are trains and why trains cannot compete using 200-year-old technology.