The Swedish Transport Agency has initiated a pilot study in the field of autonomous vehicles/driving. Its aim is to identify whether and how particular pieces of legislation need to be modified in order to enable the deployment of automated vehicles on Swedish roads by 2016.
The development of self-driving vehicles is taking place at a rapid pace, and systems which support autonomous driving will soon be ready for market launch. However, as different stakeholders with access to different policy instruments often operate independently, there is not a clear roadmap on how the deployment of automatic driving will evolve.
It may be easy to believe that the challenge is primarily technical in nature, such as ensuring the reliability of these systems. However, today’s road traffic system is very complex. However, development in the field may have a radical effect on the entire road traffic system and its function in society. It will probably impact at an overall societal level in respect of community and urban planning, settlement patterns, travel patterns and travel habits, traffic work, car ownership forms, etc.
The interaction between human and technology is an important element of autonomous driving. Observing Human Factors/Man-Technology-Organisation (HF/MTO) at an early stage of system manufacture and design is very important.
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