The Road Will Become More Competitively Viable than Rail, Air and Water Transport

There's a revolution brewing on Germany's roads: In the not too distant future, cars could be controlled exclusively by computers. Today there are already a number of vehicles on Germany's roads which are able to steer themselves independently, at least to some degree. The US company Google also recently presented its own self-driving car. ZEW environmental economist Wolfgang Habla offers his thoughts on the potential arising from autonomous driving as well as its possible environmental and social consequences.

It has been claimed that autonomous cars could lead to a better utilisation of existing roads and, in particular, motorways. Will autonomous driving have a positive effect on the environment?

Yes and no. On the one hand, the safe distance needed between autonomous cars will be shorter than what it is today, since a computer can react to the car in front braking more quickly than a human can. Traffic is also expected to flow more smoothly with the introduction of self-driving cars, which would in turn lead to fewer traffic jams and lower levels of harmful emissions and noise pollution. On the other hand, it is not clear that there won't simply be more cars on the road than there are today. In the transport sector, around 50 per cent of total costs go on paying drivers. If, in the future, commercial vehicles no longer require any human input, the road will become considerably more competitively viable than rail, air or water transport, which could lead to a sharp rise in the volume of traffic. Autonomous driving is also an interesting possibility for passenger transport. Older people, people without drivers' licences and people with physical disabilities represent completely new groups of buyers for autonomous cars.

What does this turning point mean for traffic planning?

Autonomous driving becomes more technically demanding the more road users interact with one another. This is why we are likely to see self-driving cars arriving on city streets much later than on the motorway, for example. In the first few years when these cars are perhaps not yet able to identify every obstacle with 100% accuracy, traffic planning should take care to ensure that traffic management systems are sufficiently clear and that there is a clear separation between vehicles and other road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. And if the volume of traffic does in fact increase, extra capacities will have to be created.

Politicians are currently paving the way for autonomous cars from a legal standpoint: Are our values and legal system sufficiently prepared for the arrival of self-driving cars?

There are three essential questions that the legal system must be prepared for: When an accident occurs, is it the car manufacturer or the passenger that is liable? Does the owner have to be able to take over the controls at any time? And finally, how should the car be programmed to deal with a situation in which an accident and resulting injury to other human beings is unavoidable? In the case of the latter, there are frequent debates surrounding hypothetical situations which present moral and ethical dilemmas. Specifically, they deal with a situation like the following: An autonomous car encounters an unexpected obstacle. If the car doesn't swerve, it puts the passenger's life in danger. If it does swerve, however, it endangers the lives of uninvolved pedestrians. What decision should the car make? Should the car be allowed to swerve at all and potentially impact the lives of innocent bystanders? With questions like these, it is sometimes the case that our sense of morality and the law diverge wildly – and there is certainly plenty of further discussion to be had on this issue.

The Transport Committee of the German Bundestag has criticised the fact that the bill presented by the Federal Cabinet passes the current risks on to the driver. What are the legal pitfalls?

The bill places the ultimate responsibility on the driver. Even though the driver, according to the law, "can in certain situations hand over control of the vehicle to the technical system", the driver is not replaced by the system while driving. The driver must still be able to take over the controls at any time when prompted by the system or if the system is unable to take control of all driving functions. This bill, however, concerns highly- or fully-automated driving, not what is known as "autonomous driving", where all people in the vehicle are no longer drivers, but passengers. In the case of autonomous driving, responsibility would probably lie with the vehicle or the manufacturer, but we haven't got to this point yet.

What about our European neighbours – do they have autonomous cars on the road yet?

As yet, there is no country in the world with self-driving cars on the road that function entirely without human input. Even in the famous test drives in California, a human being still has to be able to assume control of the system. There is, however, already competition among a number of countries to draft the best possible legal framework for autonomous driving. Countries with a strong automotive industry such as the US, Germany and Sweden, have shown a particular interest in seeing that this technology of the future is ready to go into production as soon as possible following testing on their own streets. The German federal government recently published a strategy paper stating plans for Germany to become a "leading market" for automated driving technologies.