Who Is in Control? Road Safety and Automation in Road Traffic Who Is in Control? Road Safety and Automation in Road Traffic
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SSubmitted by the expert from the Netherlands Distributed to GRVA as informal document GRVA-05-48 5th GRVA, 10-14 February 2020, agenda item 3 DUTCH SAFETY BOARD Who is in control? Road safety and automation in road traffic Who is in control? Road safety and automation in road traffic The Hague, November 2019 Photo cover: Dutch Safety Board The reports issued by the Dutch Safety Board are public. All reports are also available on the Safety Board’s website: www.safetyboard.nl - 2 - The Dutch Safety Board When accidents or disasters happen, the Dutch Safety Board investigates how it was possible for these to occur, with the aim of learning lessons for the future and, ultimately, improving safety in the Netherlands. The Safety Board is independent and is free to decide which incidents to investigate. In particular, it focuses on situations in which people’s personal safety is dependent on third parties, such as the government or companies. In certain cases the Board is under an obligation to carry out an investigation. Its investigations do not address issues of blame or liability. Dutch Safety Board Chairman: J.R.V.A. Dijsselbloem M.B.A. van Asselt S. Zouridis Secretary Director: C.A.J.F. Verheij Visiting address: Lange Voorhout 9 Postal address: PO Box 95404 2514 EA The Hague 2509 CK The Hague The Netherlands The Netherlands Telephone: +31 (0)70 333 7000 Website: safetyboard.nl E-mail: [email protected] N.B. This report is published in het Dutch and English language. If there is a difference in interpretation between the Dutch and English version, the Dutch text wil prevail. - 3 - CONTENT Considerations ........................................................................................................... 6 Summary .................................................................................................................... 8 Recommendations .....................................................................................................11 Abbreviations ............................................................................................................12 1 Introduction .........................................................................................................14 1.1 Road safety and automation ................................................................................ 14 1.2 Aim and research questions ................................................................................. 15 1.3 Working method .................................................................................................. 16 1.4 Terms of reference and definitions ....................................................................... 16 1.5 Involved parties .................................................................................................... 21 1.6 Guide for readers ................................................................................................. 22 2 Reference framework ......................................................................................... 23 2.1 Safe introduction of new technology ................................................................... 23 2.2 Cybersecurity ....................................................................................................... 26 3 Managing safety risks ..........................................................................................29 3.1 Immaturity of systems .......................................................................................... 30 3.2 Drivers as operators ............................................................................................. 37 3.3 Interaction between vehicles and drivers ............................................................. 44 3.4 Dynamics of automation ...................................................................................... 51 3.5 Cybersecurity ....................................................................................................... 56 3.6 Conclusions ...........................................................................................................61 4 Bottlenecks in the safe introduction and deployment of ADAS .........................62 4.1 Design .................................................................................................................. 62 4.2 Type approval and policy ..................................................................................... 66 4.3 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 76 5 Bottlenecks in monitoring and adjustment .........................................................78 5.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 78 5.2 Lack of information ............................................................................................... 79 5.3 Learning from accidents and hazardous situations .............................................. 81 5.4 Learning from cybersecurity incidents ................................................................. 83 5.5 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 86 6 Conclusions ..........................................................................................................87 - 4 - 7 Recommendations ............................................................................................... 90 References .................................................................................................................91 Appendix A. Explanation of the investigation .......................................................101 Appendix B. Responses to the draft report ..........................................................111 Appendix C. Accidents ...........................................................................................112 Appendix D. ADAS .................................................................................................136 Appendix E. Legislation and regulations ...............................................................146 - 5 - CONSIDERATIONS Safer cars thanks to innovation The history of the car is one of technological innovation. As a consequence, over time, cars have become more reliable, more comfortable and safer. Partly thanks to such innovations as crumple zones and airbags, road safety has improved drastically since the 1970s. Over the past few years, however, the improvement in road safety has stagnated: every year, there are more than 600 deaths on the roads in the Netherlands and around 21,000 serious injuries. In the face of this worrying situation, both national and European governments have announced the ambition of ‘zero deaths’ on the roads by the year 2050, starting with a reduction to not more than 500 road fatalities in 2020. The expectation is that innovation - and more specifically automation - will make a contribution in the form of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) such as emergency braking systems and adaptive cruise control. Fundamental change in the character of the car It is important to realize that modern cars equipped with ADAS are incomparable in technical terms with their predecessors of just a few decades ago. New cars can already take over numerous tasks from the driver, for example steering, braking and accelerating. The ADAS in fact carry out these actions on the basis of their own observations and their own decisions, coordinated by algorithms. Vehicles of this kind are equipped with so much hardware and software that they are effectively computers on wheels. This fact has far-reaching consequences for drivers, other road users and the infrastructure. It effectively implies a fundamental change in the character of the car: a transformation which, as is the case for any innovation, delivers not only progress but also new safety risks. Driving is becoming more difficult and easier at the same time Automation means that relatively simple tasks can be taken over and executed at a constant and higher level of safety. The difficult tasks (for the time being tasks that are too difficult to solve with automation) are left to human drivers. Automation is changing the human task because drivers are required to remain ‘constantly alert’ just in case the computer does not know what to do, or intervenes wrongly. This represents an additional difficulty since automation in fact reduces the level of alertness. In just a few short seconds, drivers are required to understand that intervention is necessary, before making the adequate response. After all, the margins on the roads are minimal. The outcome is a paradoxical situation in which ADAS that are intended to make the life of the driver easier in fact make it specifically more difficult. - 6 - The autonomous car is still a long way off When the discussion turns to the automation of cars, the focus is often on the future vision of autonomous cars, in which the driver if superfluous. The car drives itself, while the people it is carrying are busy with something entirely different. This distant-future vision appeals to the imagination of policy makers, engineers, town and city planners and philosophers. But we are still a long way from reaching that stage. Certainly in built-up areas where cars and vulnerable traffic participants come together, the future with fully autonomous cars is still a long way away, if it can ever in fact be achieved. Urgent attention