In profile: Dr Daniel Ruiz - Chief Executive, Zenzic

While for many of us taking a ride in an autonomous vehicle may require an extraordinary leap of faith, Ruiz’ confidence in the technology is such that he has happily ridden in several different self-driven vehicles – Aurrigo’s self-driving pods, which are a last-mile solution, and Oxbotica’s cars, which fit more in the urban robotaxi bracket. “These are two really strong examples of where the UK is at the forefront in this field,” Ruiz said.

However, before this vision of a self-driven future can become a reality there are 500 milestones that need to be passed, as detailed in Zenzic’s UK Connected and Automated Mobility Roadmap to 2030, launched at London’s Science Museum last September.

ACHIEVING CONSENSUS

As Zenzic is an equal partnership of industry, government and academia, Ruiz is keen that it adopts a collaborative approach. “The industry is extremely complex, and there are so many players involved – many organisations, many individuals. The question we ask is this: how can we orchestrate them, how can we get the most out of collaboration?” he said.

Ruiz believes that it is critical that this collaborative approach is aligned to a collective vision of what the world may look like in ten years’ time. “That’s what we did as a starting point for our road map for 2030,” he said, “Getting everybody who has a vested interest in that outcome to come into a room and say we’re all striving towards that outcome, bringing our own skills and experience.”

His aim is to get the most diverse set of organisations into the room through workshops that are focused on overlapping parts in order to create something which is consensual and not ridden with individual agendas. “It has to be regarded as objective basically,” he said, “Neither over optimistic nor over pessimistic, and certainly not seen to be pursuing an individual organisation’s or an individual industry’s agenda.”

THE ROAD AHEAD

This collaborative approach manifests itself in the road mapping exercise for its CAM Roadmap to 2030, which took a number of road maps, such as the 5GAA roadmap and ERTICO, the European road technology roadmap and the Automotive Council UK’s vehicles roadmap, and laid them over each other to identify common developments which were happening in different years. Ruiz said: “Getting the three of them and others into the room helped achieve some consensus and some compromise and identified some interventions or milestones which could be brought together to one particular date, and they would agree that we could achieve that if these things happen and we have control over those things happening, which is incredibly powerful.”

Since it was launched last year, the roadmap has enjoyed a phenomenal reception. “We could not have asked for a better response or expected one,” Ruiz said. “It’s even been translated into Japanese, because there are a number of Japanese companies and government departments that think it is excellent and they want to refer to it. There are numerous organisations that I know that are using it – vehicle manufacturers, suppliers to tier ones, twos and threes, start-ups, legal, insurance and from all parts of the community.”

GAINING PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE

A recent study by Bosch established that the UK public is very sceptical about the benefits of connected and autonomous vehicles, but it also revealed that they are aware that they don’t know about what these systems and technologies can do for them. Ruiz said, “The implication was a very clear link that if awareness was increased from education and information, acceptance would probably follow very quickly, because that cynicism is based upon a lack of knowledge. If the education comes, the perception will convert and acceptance will follow very rapidly.”

On the roadmap there is a specific line about public acceptance, and Ruiz talks a lot about the sequence from awareness through acceptance and onto adoption.

“There’s a specific piece of work being done by the Department for Transport around understanding public perception of the technologies and how they might be used,” Ruiz said, “And there is a communications plan being shaped to inform the public about what they mean in terms of usage and safety and so on.”

CHANGING OWNERSHIP MODEL

Ruiz believes that once self-driving vehicles become more established, the model of vehicle ownership will change to shared ownership, whether that is sharing a vehicle or sharing its occupancy.

“If you look forward a couple of decades,” Ruiz said, “autonomy will be taken for granted, self-driving will be taken for granted. The fact that nowadays you have to book a taxi, it’s driven to the pick-up point then takes you to where you want, it’s just a delay injected into any journey, whether it’s a taxi, a bus or any form of public transport, those elements of inconvenience will disappear.”

Ruiz thinks the self-driving revolution will also tweak and adjust our lifestyles, giving us certainty about when taxis will come to collect us, and therefore giving us back time we may otherwise have lost. “In a bizarre way,” he said, “it might calm down some of the pace of life, which seems to have got increasingly frenetic as we take for granted that the car is going to be in the drive to take us away.”

ROAD TO ZERO

The growing drive to decarbonise transport, including the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2035, should help support the development of self-driving vehicles, but Ruiz is concerned that the message about the synergy between the two is not being heard. “There is a major impact on decarbonisation to be had from electrification,” he said, “but that’s not going to go all the way. There is still a large benefit to be had from the efficiencies in traffic, reduction in congestion, the flow of traffic.”

Ruiz said there is a way of enabling drivers, and commercial drivers in particular, to minimise the amount they need to stop/start or accelerate/decelerate. Known as GLOSA (Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory), an iPad on the dash will tell the driver what speed he or she needs to make sure they can go through the next green light without having to stop, which can lead to substantial reductions in fuel consumption. 

Similarly, platooning has been proven to reduce fuel consumption by a few percentage points. “But of course,” Ruiz said, “a few percentage points in a logistics company’s financial records is very, very important.”

BIG DATA

Connectivity is essential for data flow, Ruiz maintains, and data flow is vital to gain the intelligence and insight that Zenzic is looking to generate. “You will be able to deploy your fleets far more effectively if there is more intelligence about where your assets are, where the vehicles are, ” he said, “and I know that logistics companies are already very smart in how they move things around.

“There are marginal but valuable gains to be had. If you have the intelligence that says where your vehicles are, where they’re moving, what the infrastructure is doing to influence their movements then as soon as you bring the infrastructure into the equation you are better off than you are currently.”

FIRST PUBLIC TRIALS

The world of self-driving is currently moving to its first public trials in the UK. Autonomous pods, which could be used to provide mass driverless transport, are being trialled in Bristol by infrastructure firm AECOM, which is working with partners including the Bristol Robotics Laboratory to develop autonomous vehicles.

Next year, a trial has been planned of buses delivering a semi-commercial service into Edinburgh across the Forth Road Bridge. Currently the code of practice and the regulations say that you must have someone who is ready and able at all times to take control of a vehicle, so a safety vehicle will be present.

“I have to say it’s immensely exciting,” Ruiz said, “They are real deployments demonstrating that the UK is right up there with the Americans, the Singaporeans, the Japanese and the Dutch.”

Published On: 01/04/2020 10:39:48

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