Edmonton and Calgary announced recently that they would begin a pilot project with driverless shuttle buses this year. The buses are electric, have no steering wheels, and use 3D mapping and localization data from sensors and cameras to guide themselves.
Closer to home, a pitch by Vancouver and Surrey for smart-tech, autonomous-vehicle corridors has been shortlisted for the federal Smart Cities Challenge. The proposed Vancouver corridor would extend from Granville Island to Science World, while the Surrey route would connect key facilities and services to a major transit hub.
The B.C. and Alberta projects propose to run the driverless vehicles on dedicated roadways. Current legislation in each province allows only that. To date, Ontario is the only Canadian jurisdiction to issue permits to groups that want to pilot autonomous vehicles on public roads.
That doesn’t mean driverless transportation is new to Canada, however.
Light-rail transit systems in Calgary and Vancouver, for example, have been moving people around without drivers for years. Those transportation systems use dedicated, railed routes, significantly reducing the potential for crashes. In addition, the tracks and rail cars are equipped with sensors that automatically stop the trains when objects are detected on the tracks ahead. This further reduces derailment risk, although it does lead to numerous unscheduled, inconvenient and often prolonged stops for commuters.
Autopiloting is also common in air travel. Larger commercial aircraft travel flight paths that are pre-programmed into onboard flight systems — technology that first started being developed in 1912. Today’s aircraft autopilot systems regulate the plane’s control surfaces, allowing it to fly straight and level without human-pilot intervention.
Marine autopilot systems also got their start in the early 20th century. As the technology evolved, the systems became ever better at measuring and adjusting for the continuous disturbances that a vessel is exposed to — waves, wind and currents. Today, marine autopilots on ships and boats of all sizes steer true to their set courses, saving time and fuel.
All the buzz about driverless cars invites us to imagine being chauffeured through high-speed traffic by Google, Tesla or Audi while we nap, read or catch up on office work in the backseat, but none of the older, tested automated-piloting systems do away with humans. They just free us to focus on other tasks critical to safe travel — monitoring systems, course and weather.
In fact, national and international legislation and safety standards require that airline pilots and ships’ captains and duty officers remain on watch while their craft are underway, and that they be ready and able to take control when necessary.
When the humans who are present fail this responsibility, the consequences can be tragic. Air France flight 447 disappeared suddenly on May 31, 2009, with 228 people on board. Recovery of the cockpit black box revealed the automated system flying the plane had suddenly shut off, and the pilots were left surprised, confused and ultimately unable to fly the plane.
In October 2016, the tugboat Nathan E. Stewart and barge DBL 55 ran aground near Bella Bella when the second mate slept through what should have been a course change. The vessel had been on autopilot since an earlier course change, and was also equipped with an electronic chart system — a navigational tool that sounds an alarm if the vessel veers from the predetermined course. The alarm system had been turned off. Because of the grounding, 110,000 litres of fuel and lube oil spilled into Seaforth Channel.
The inquiry into the 2006 sinking of the Queen of the North found those on watch were distracted and missed a required course change.
And then there’s Tesla. A U.S. Transportation Safety Board investigation into the company’s latest autopilot crash found the car, driving in “Autopilot” mode, sped up and steered into a concrete barrier, killing the (non-)driver on board. With a growing number of embarrassing or fatal crashes on the Tesla-autopilot accident sheet, the company points to its vehicle manual, which warns that the technology cannot detect all objects and that drivers should remain attentive.
All this means the promise of being able to check out mentally in our own driverless cars on the way to future work might be mere pixie dust. Don’t expect a dashboard snooze button any time soon.
