Humanising Autonomy is excited to announce that it is partnering with Arriva London and Transport for London to work on the next generation of London’s Bus Safety Standard. TfL is evaluating new software to integrate in several driver assist systems which will become mandatory in the next few years. This is all part of London’s effort to reach Vision Zero by 2041 — with the goal to put an end to deaths and injuries on our roads.
In 2018 Transport for London launched their world leading Bus Safety Standard with the aim to reach required incident reduction targets. Now they are working on an updated version of this standard for which they will evaluate further technologies. Arriva London and Humanising Autonomy successfully applied for funding as part of the Bus Safety Innovation Challenge to test and evaluate Humanising Autonomy’s software on London’s streets.
Claire Mann, Director of Bus Operations at TfL, said: “We’re determined to eliminate death and serious injury from our roads, but we know that we can’t do it alone. Our Bus Safety Standard is resulting in safer buses arriving in London this year, and this fund will harness the power of innovators, such as Humanising Autonomy — ensuring it complements our standard — helping to make deaths and serious injuries on our roads a thing of the past.”
Arriva serves about 1/5 of London’s bus network and will provide Humanising Autonomy with Buses and cameras to test the software in real-time and on a large scale dataset. This first trial will focus on predicting intents of pedestrians and cyclists while not increasing the risk for bus occupants. London is one of the most challenging cities with its jaywalking pedestrians and growing cycling community.
“We are delighted to have been selected as part of TfL’s innovation challenge working in partnership with Humanising Autonomy. London is an extremely challenging environment and our drivers are required to constantly assess a number of factors when carrying out their duties in order to provide a safe and reliable service. We see technology as a key factor in helping us to support our drivers in facing these challenges and see great value in the innovative solutions that Humanising Autonomy provide. Improving road safety is our key focus and we value TfL’s support with the innovation challenge, Vision Zero and the Bus Safety Standard in making this happen” says Wasim Mohammed, Head Of Risk at UK Bus Arriva Group.
Initially developed for autonomous vehicles, the software integrates with all levels of autonomy, including driver-assist features for human-driven vehicles such as Automated Emergency Brakes, front and near-side driver alerts, or rear-mirror camera monitoring systems. With this step by step approach to fully automated vehicles Humanising Autonomy can accelerate adoption rate of automated technology, build public trust, and increase human safety already today.