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Roadmap to success: Five challenges facing the autonomous vehicle sectorAdd bookmark
Despite the hype surrounding AV technology, new research shows the UK is still a decade from mass adoption
Photo by Jean-Frederic Fortier on Unsplash
Look at the tech news on any given day and you'd be forgiven for thinking that driverless cars, or Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs), are already part of everyday life.
But a new report by PA Consulting Group—Autonomous Vehicles: What are the roadblocks?—has found that, despite significant investment and innovation in recent years, it's likely to be ten years before CAVs are widespread on UK roads.
This is because so much effort is being focused on the technology and the vehicle, rather than the other areas that need addressing, said Charlie Henderson, roads expert at PA Consulting Group.
"While manufacturers and the media talk enthusiastically about mass uptake of autonomous vehicles, the reality is that there are a number of significant technological, legislative and public confidence barriers," Henderson said.
Despite the promises of CAV networks—think everything from user freedom and increased safety to less congestion and lower greenhouse emissions—the report highlights that innovation must extend far beyond the technology aspect for adoption to be seamless and widespread.
"Nothing is solved until everything is solved," the report cautions. This begs the question—what are the areas that need addressing in the coming decade? And who is responsible for overseeing this challenge?
For all the hype in this area, AV technology in the UK continues to lag behind that of its Nordic neighbors by approximately seven years. And while technology is the overwhelming focus of public discourse, discussions on purpose and development are pertinent to overcoming the range of issues facing driverless cars.
Read more: Autonmous vehicles—what are the roadblocks?
Additionally, the growing demand for the right skills to develop, test and validate CAV technology puts the onus on governments to consider opportunities to educate and upskill, and manufacturers to invest in talent.
Regulation and laws
Deemed the second largest roadblock to success, regulatory systems and laws present a nuanced challenge for almost every stakeholder in the CAV ecosystem. The report, which drew on research with over 100 experts involved in the emerging driverless sector, found that this challenge may take as long as 25 years to resolve.
According to Henderson, key questions that need to be addressed include:
- What right does the government have to access and interrogate CAV data?
- How can police and law enforcement hold driverless vehicles to account?
- Who is responsible in the event of an accident, threat or suspicious behavior?
Once these sorts of questions are answerable, integrating CAVs into existing transport networks will become easier.
"Some of our roads regulation is dated, the legislative process can be slow and difficult in comparison with other countries and we have a large number of bodies involved in managing our roads network," said Henderson. "Despite the ambitions of our politicians, we are a cautious country and this makes it hard to move at pace."
Concerns over data protection and privacy are an implicit challenge as far as the experts are concerned—especially with the increasing capability to track vehicle routes before they happen.
"The more we connect things, the more susceptible we are to large-scale cyber attack," Henderson notes. Overcoming this will be no mean feat given that AI makes continual self-improvement possible, meaning that safety features will need to allow for vehicles to learn on-the-job.
While the majority of experts (74 per cent) believe that exploratory testing and thinking is underway in AV security, only 15 per cent said that the building blocks are in place for a security framework.
In addition to the development of new technologies, infrastructure—including both roads and roadside technology such as electric vehicle charging points—is essential for the integration of CAVs on a national scale.
Photo by Adam Grabek on Unsplash
Present upgrades to local roads aren't taking into account driverless vehicles because of tight budgets, the report found. While smart motorways will bring widespread benefits and quick wins, the onus is on federal government to create a long-term vision that local governments can align to in their priority planning for roads and infrastructure.
Public confidence
"The UK is around 10 years away from having confidence around adoption of autonomous vehicles," said Henderson. This is despite the fact that, "the full benefits of AVs will only be realized when the vast majority of us are running them," he added.
For this to change people will need to be sure of three things—the change is worth it; insurance covers them; and regulations protect them. This puts the onus squarely on key players at all points in the driverless ecosystem to communicate the social and economic benefits of CAVs clearly, according to the report.
Read more: Autonmous vehicles—what are the roadblocks?
For example, the mobility benefits that widespread adoption of CAVs will bring promises access to larger sections of society, while the potential to synchronize vehicle networks could eliminate human error resulting in increased user safety in the long-term.
Additionally, there's a lot of talk about people not owning cars in the future—but that's already a reality, said Henderson. "So what is the real advantage of having an autonomous vehicle? We need to be able to answer that."
A clear road forward
For all the questions it raises, the report is clear on one thing: The challenges are numerous, complex and interconnected. Henderson concludes, "We need to start to think about these things in an integrated way, rather than individual issues for individual organizations to look at."
Download the report today to find out why driverless cars are not going to be on our roads any time in the next decade.


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Feb 5, 2011
Prescription refill process fails ... over and over again
The process of using my insurance today to refill a prescription was stressful enough to make anyone sick. But let me discuss the sucky process calmly, instead of going into my usual diatribe.
Catalyst is the company that won Ford Motor Company's prescription management away from Medco. The overall manager of the health benefit is Blue Cross (if any of my friends from BCBSM read this, make a note). Medco had fairly good processes for managing prescriptions and ordering online.
My first experience with Catalyst was when the transition from Medco had just taken place and I had not received the information about the change (confession: I might have put it into the "to read when I get a chance" slush pile. The Medco website wasn't working. I eventually called Medco's customer service and they sent me to Catalyst's customer service representatives. I got all sorts of conflicting instructions for changing over and using the Catalyst website. It was weirdly cumbersome but like a bad dream, I've repressed most of the memory.
Today I attempted to refill a prescription that I had almost run out of. Medco used to send me e-mails. I went to the website. It wanted me to use my member ID, birth date, and Rx group number. Of course, my card was in my wallet, which was in another room. OK, got it. Several times I tried to login by filling in the member and group ID information and each time it failed. Error messages said to put in the right information from my card. Ummm, that's what I was doing. Either the terminology on the card was not the same as the website, or it was tied to some card other than my Blue Cross card. Don't ask me, I DID replace my old Blue Cross card with the new one I received last December. The letter I got said that the same card worked for prescriptions and medical services. Why couldn't the website let me create a username and password when I registered last time. I might have remembered it.
I attempted to call the 800 number from the "contact us" page on the website to order by phone. Well, it's not the right 800 number. Automation lady referred me to a different 800 number, but I wasn't ready to write it down. Did she repeat it? What do you think? The refill customer service option should be right there on the website, wouldn't you say? How hard would that be?
I found the phone number and automation lady #2 took over. I had 3 prescriptions to refill. (I only planned to do one, but decided I'd better get more in if I had the chance. All this time I was carrying the phone up and down stairs to get med containers and so on.) The third Rx number would not go through. Automation lady transferred me.
If there is a plus side, it is that each action in response to a process failure kicked in as probably designed, and I experienced every one of them. That is, unless something goes wrong with actually filling and shipping the prescription.
Unfortunately for them, the general email addresses for Catalyst customer service, sales and marketing, and webmaster WERE on that website's "contact us" page, so they got a message from me much like this post. I told them, "Each of your departments should feel totally embarrassed to be working for a company with such poor processes. You can send me your apologies, which would be gracious, but won't fix any root causes. If you really cared, you would look into joining the American Society for Quality (ASQ) or some such organization and learn a thing or two. I will let the Ford Retiree Benefits people know that I think they made a REALLY BIG MISTAKE selecting your company to administer our prescription benefits." I figured no use in mentioning lean or six sigma, if they were as clueless as they seemed.
I also mentioned that I would tell you, faithful readers, about their poor quality. I find myself feeling completely entitled to perfect service, which is the symptom of a growing malady that might be called "lean fever." Is there a medication for that?
4 comments:
- Matt Wrye said...
Ahhhhh! I hate all that prescription by mail. Today I had to go fill a pain medicine for my daughter. She is in tears right there at the store from the pain. We went right from the doctor or it would have taken 30 minutes longer. First, the doctor wrote the script for a strength that doesn't even exist. So the pharmacy called the office and got it fixed. Then the store didn't have the medicine but they had one very close, but they had to call the doctor again and get it approved. It was just too crazy.
It just doesn't have to be that hard.
- Curious Cat said...
The right medicine for that is finding well run companies to work with :-) Amazon would probably do this well. They did buy drugstore.com many years ago I think. Actually it is curious that such an effort isn't doing better.
- Unknown said...
It's our health insurance that determines that for any medication you take all the time - a "maintenance" med, you have to use the mail order pharmacy that they pick. If you're sick, or trying something new, you can go to the retail pharmacy. An Amazon run service would be great, they should definitely go after this market. You just need a bunch of pharmacists to dispense the drugs. And why don't pharmaceutical manufacturers prepackage more meds in 30-dose sealed packages? You could assemble a combination for almost any order without having to count and account for individual pills.
- Joe said...
Great post, Karen.
My guess is Ford switched because the new place submitted a lower bid.
Which challenges MEDCO...could they have not improved their already good processes to make money at a still lower price? If we put our Lean money where our Lean mouths are, that would be a move to prevent this hassle.
Good health to you!!

subset: commoncrawl


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Growth Trends for Related Jobs
The addition of a digital display to Vernier calipers makes reading measurements easier and more convenient. It uses capacitive plates that send impulses to a digital counter when you move the caliper jaws back and forth.
Digital calipers have a thin strip of etched circuit board material glued along the main body of the instrument, called the stator. The circuit board carries a linear electrode array that alters signals given off by another array on the slider.
Inside the slider, another electrode array faces the one on the stator, but does not physically touch it. Two sets of electrodes make up the slider array, one that carries a sine signal and another carrying a cosine signal.
Electronics in the slider produce a 100kHz signal in the sine and cosine electrode arrays. The stator electrodes interfere with the sine and cosine signals. A pair of detectors in the slider pick up the altered signal and produce accurate position and direction information.
A computer decodes the position and direction information into relative movement readings. It converts position into either millimeters or inches and displays the result.
Photo Credits
- micrometer image by Stanisa Martinovic from Fotolia.com


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Various youth groups gathered at Plaza Miranda in Manila on June 23 for a Black Friday protest, calling for an end to President Duterte's martial law in Mindanao, and a stop to government air strike in Marawi City. The protesters then marched to Mendiola near the Presidential Palace.
VIDEO By MARY ANGELIQUE TACATA
Related story: Black Friday protest | 'Martial law aggravated situation in Mindanao'


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Advisors remain optimistic about the economy's immediate future, according to a survey released in June by SEI. Almost 80% of advisors surveyed at SEI's National Strategic Advisor Conference said they see "slow and steady" growth for the economy through the end of 2014.
SEI also surveyed advisors about their use of technology and social media; advisors overwhelmingly cited LinkedIn as the most effective social network.
On the subject of economic growth, most advisors (76%) thought the Dow Jones industrial average would rise 10% or less. Another 17% said the Dow would rise 11% to 20%.
"It seems like the psychological after-effects of the recession are finally starting to wear off, and advisors are becoming more optimistic about the market," Steve Onofrio, senior vice president of sales and service for the SEI Advisor Network, said in a statement. "They may not be ready to predict huge returns, but even anticipating slow growth is an improvement over where most advisors were a year ago. It will be critical for advisors to now start communicating that optimism to their clients."
An SEI survey conducted last year found 41% of advisors expected similar levels of economic growth, while 40% expected a correction.
The two biggest factors keeping that steady growth slow, advisors say, are global and political issues and federal debt. Almost 60% of respondents said geopolitical issues would be the biggest dampers on the economy, while 20% said debt would prevent stronger growth.
Advisors All In on LinkedIn
SEI also asked respondents some questions to divine specific ways technology could help their business.
Fifteen percent of respondents said technology opened new channels of communication between them and their clients. In that regard, (some) social media has been a useful tool for advisors to build their business. Eighty-two percent of advisors said LinkedIn was the most effective social media channel they've used. Facebook and Twitter scraped together a combined 5%, less even than blogs, of which 12% of advisors agreed were an effective tool.
Just 9% said technology helps them give their clients a better view of their wealth.
Three-quarters of respondents said technology allowed them to be more productive be creating efficiencies. However, 56% of respondents said they did not have integrated processes in place to help them deliver a consistent client experience.
SEI suggested that may be a matter of having the money but not the time to devote to technology. More than half of respondents said they didn't have time to keep up with the latest tools available to them, while just 5% said they couldn't afford the updates.
Check out 'If You Don't Have a Social Presence, You Don't Count' on ThinkAdvisor.