Autonomous vehicles testing on public roads: an overview of the Italian use case in the EU-Project SHOW

IRF R2T Conference & Exhibition October 31 – November 3, 2022 Washington, DC KEYWORDS: Autonomous Vehicles, Ethics, Liability ABSTRACT: One of the main issues related to the widespread of autonomous vehicles is the authorization for testing on public roads; one of the main problems, straightly connected, is related to responsibility and law-questions behind accidents. Furthermore, there will be a transition period in which autonomous vehicles will be in the same roads of traditional vehicles. Italy is one of the few countries that issued a specific legislation for testing on public roads and has been recently involved in a European-funded project, to test autonomous vehicles in urban streets: the SHOW project, that involves two autonomous shuttles for public transport in the city of Turin, under normal traffic conditions. This paper deals with all the issues related to ethics and liability for autonomous vehicles, showing how these challenges has been faced in Italy, especially in the Turin case study in the SHOW project, as a model for other countries. PAPER TITLE Autonomous vehicles testing on public roads: an overview of the Italian use case in the EU-Project SHOW TRACK AUTHOR POSITION ORGANIZATION COUNTRY Guido Lorenzo Valletta Junior project manager TTS Italia Italy CO-AUTHOR(S) POSITION ORGANIZATION COUNTRY Leonardo Domanico Project manager TTS Italia Italy E-MAIL (for correspondence) [email protected] [email protected] 1 Ethics and responsibility in Autonomous Vehicles In today's scenario, Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are increasingly becoming a near and necessary reality. In the next 10-15 years there will be a transition period in which most of the cars will be still traditional and not implemented with Autonomous Driving technologies. In this scenario, one of the main problems will be related to safety, since autonomous and not autonomous vehicles will circulate in the same roads, and the risks of accidents and injuries will be very high. It is indeed a fact that around 90% of the causes that lead to accidents are attributable to human error and AVs could be one of the solutions. Establishing an international standard therefore serves to streamline the implementation process of AVs, and the legislation is a key factor in this process. The social impact of AVs is an aspect of absolute importance for enhancing the potential deriving from the use of these technological innovations and acquiring a fair awareness of the benefits, including social ones, that could derive from them. Since July 14th, 2022, the Vienna Convention, which regulates the circulation of cars on European roads, has been amended. The introduction of Article 34-bis introduces the concept of 'automatic driving systems'. Thanks to this article, the regulatory basis is laid for the introduction of technologies that enable the vehicle to move autonomously and, therefore, without the driver keeping his hands on the steering wheel. This type of AV, according to the SAE classification, is registered from Level 3. This level, in fact, allows the vehicle to take control under specific conditions of use [Sitography n. 9 – S9]. The new features introduced, however, are in conflict with the Italian Road Code. The Code, in fact, defines vehicles as 'all machines of any kind that circulate on roads driven by man' (Art. 46). Future work on this definition will be necessary. Subsequently, the proposal to extend the use of AVs in certain traffic environments from the current 60 km/h limit to 130 km/h was adopted; in addition, the European Commission has introduced a series of new safety measures through mandatory advanced driver assistance systems that will shape the new legal framework for the type of approval of AVs in the EU. This summer, the Commission will present the technical standards for the type of approval of fully driverless vehicles, making the EU a pioneer in this field. At present, the new measures introducing safety functions to assist the driver include: • For all road vehicles (cars, vans, trucks and buses): intelligent speed assistance, reversing detection with camera or sensors, attention warning in case of driver drowsiness or distraction, event data recorders and emergency stop signal; • For cars and vans: additional functions such as lane keeping and automated braking; • For buses and trucks: technologies to better recognise possible blind spots, warnings to prevent collisions with pedestrians or cyclists and tyre pressure monitoring systems. Despite this normative update, the current obstacle lies in national laws, which do not yet recognize AVs. However, it is mandatory to keep in mind two fundamental issues in the process of implementing AVs: issues relating to ethics and responsibility in the event of an accident. For AVs to become a standardised part of the transportation system of our society in the future, it is necessary to test them on public roads. Such operational tests are important to define the prerequisites and conditions for future regulations. In recent years, many countries have implemented specific national regulatory frameworks for operational tests of AVs, which include different requirements and tests. In most cases, permits are granted on an individual basis and several authorities are involved in the process. Applicants usually must convince the national authorities of the necessity and safety of the planned tests, depending on the individual case. Anyway, these countries take a very individual, case-by-case approach in assessing test applications. The term “ethics” in AVs is usually associated with the “trolley problem”, i.e. the dilemma concerning all the issues from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) making difficult choices from an ethical point of view. As regards ethics, the European Commission has drawn up guidelines on how an AI algorithm should be designed; the guarantor of privacy is dealing with the complex relationship between the right to privacy and the need to guarantee the security of the community on a daily basis. The purpose is to create a soft law system which will increasingly be included in a legal framework, but which must necessarily adapt to a system of sometimes binding "recommendations", such as to constitute a governance system. To generate, then, a system of responsibility that can be determined in some way in its complexity, depending on whether or not the principles that can be deduced from it are observed and to be redistributed among the various operators and users. The scenario that lies ahead is that of new rights: a system of “uncertain causality”, not new to the European legal system, which must be defined balancing various probabilistic factors of cause and effect. This system will lead to a forecast of solidarity in terms of liability between the various protagonists and at the same time, inevitably, to a skilfully developed insurance system. Also, in this case it must be ethically aimed at protecting the weakest part of the chain: the final user. The guidelines drawn up by the high-level expert group appointed by the European Commission highlighted a multitude of gaps in the European legal infrastructure and asymmetries in the national architectures. As a result, a need for legal harmonization to achieve common objectives emerged as a key issue. For this reason, the experts have established key principles to be observed both in algorithmic design, and in the implementation of investment policies, organization and dissemination of assets and systems that use AI. Such principles should be the pillars on which build a system capable of modulating the complexity of AI technologies. Regarding AV, the Commission of experts appointed by the EU has issued recommendations on safety, privacy, fairness, ethics and responsibility [Reference n.6 – R6]. These are recommendations that range from the physical protection of road users to safe design standards and safeguarding of information; they call for the development of standards to avoid dangers in the experimentation phase of new technologies by reviewing traffic regulations and adapting these rules around target users’ categories. There is no shortage of recommendations on how to develop information strategies on data collection and associated risks. 2 AV legislation in some reference countries 2.1 United Kingdom The UK Law Commission has issued a document recommending the UK government to introduce a regulation for AVs. The aim is to respond to the significant legal implications of the future spread of driverless vehicles and to eliminate the 'grey areas' in insurance matters. The use of AVs on the roads is not yet permitted by law and to date there is no homogeneous regulatory framework on the discipline internationally. In the aforementioned report [R2], the judges recommended the British government to make a clear distinction between functions that only help drivers and those that preside over AV. It is then suggested to adopt a "new safety guarantee scheme to provide regulatory supervision of AVs during their life cycle", but above all to legislate on "new legal roles for users, manufacturers and service operators, with the removal of criminal responsibility for the person in the passenger seat ". Another suggestion is to "hold the producers and operators of services criminally responsible for the false declarations or the lack of disclosure of information relevant to safety". Explicitly stating where the responsibility lies in the event of an accident is a big sticking point. But the report is clear: by redefining the driver as a responsible user and assigning responsibility to the producer, insurance should become easier for suppliers. 2.2 United States of America Each year, the number of States considering legislation related to autonomous vehicles has gradually increased. The first one to authorize the operation of AVs was Nevada in 2011. Since then, 21 other States have passed legislation related to autonomous vehicles, eleven of which have issued executive orders. Currently, only 5 States have both enacted a legislation, and signed an executive order for AVs testing [S1]. The Washington State use case is reported as the most representative one [S2]: Date of Action: 03/27/2020 – Status: Enacted Establishes minimum requirements for the testing of autonomous vehicles. Tests are allowed only in the following circumstances as follows: • No entity may test an autonomous motor vehicle on any public roadway under the department's autonomous vehicle self-certification testing pilot program unless o The entity holds an umbrella liability insurance policy that covers the entity in an amount not less than five million dollars per occurrence for damages by reason of bodily injury or death or property damage, caused by the operation of an autonomous motor vehicle for which information is provided under the autonomous vehicle self-certification testing pilot program. • In order to test an autonomous motor vehicle on any public roadway under the department's autonomous vehicle self-certification testing pilot program, the following information must be provided by the self-certifying entity testing the autonomous motor vehicle: o Contact information specified by the department; o Local jurisdictions where testing is planned; o The vehicle identification numbers of the autonomous vehicles being tested, provided that one is required by state or federal law; o Written notice in advance of testing to local and state law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction over any of the public roadways on which testing will occur. The latest innovation introduced in the US market is a robot risk policy. It will be the first errors and omissions insurance product designed specifically for the AV industry. Although the policy is designed for vehicles operating off the road, it can be expected that the increasing adoption of automated devices in various industries will open significant market opportunities especially in the automotive sector [S11]. 2.3 China In China, on March 24th, 2021, the Ministry of Public Security of China issued the Draft Proposed Amendments of the Road Traffic Safety Law (the “MPS Proposed Amendments”). The Amendments stayed that the road testing of AVs should be conducted at designated times, areas and routes in accordance with the law. Such vehicles must first pass tests in closed roads and venues and obtain temporary license plates before embarking on road testing. After passing the road test, AVs can be manufactured, imported and sold in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations, and those needing access to the road must apply for motor vehicle number plates [R6]. The MPS Proposed Amendments provide that when AVs are involved in road traffic violations or accidents, the responsibility of the driver or the AV developer shall be determined in accordance with laws, as well as the liability for damage. For AVs on the road that lacks manual operation modes, this liability issue should be separately dealt with by relevant departments of the State Council. The Shenzhen Draft Regulations allow for autonomous cars to carry out road testing and demonstration applications on highways and urban expressways within the Shenzhen Special Administrative Region, and also recognize road testing results from other provinces and cities in China. In addition, the Shenzhen Draft Regulations provide that high level AVs and full level AVs may be operated driverless following a safety assessment, review and approval by the relevant authorities in Shenzhen and adopt appropriate safety measures. The principle of “one who benefits must bear liability” is the main base of the liability allocation; second, making the driver or controller bear liability will lead the driver or controller to use the vehicle carefully and regularly maintain the vehicle; last, traffic police officers and traffic monitoring systems generally cannot rule on technical problems of autonomous cars at the scene of traffic violations or accidents. This division of liability will facilitate a speedier management over traffic incidents, in order to avoid prolonged delays for the traffic authority [S3]. 2.4 South Korea The authorization process is ruled by the Act on Promotion and Support of Commercialization of Autonomous Vehicles (the ‘AVA’) whose objective is to support the AVs industry. The most eye-grabbing part of the AVA is the introduction of designated ‘testing zones’ for AVs. The AVA provides that Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) may indicate testing zones upon reviewing applications from local governments. An array of regulations that apply to operation of an AV in Korea will be exempted within these testing zones. The MOLIT is also authorized under the AVA to designate ‘safety zones’ for AVs among public roads to promote the use of Avs [S9]. An interesting use case is provided by the OHMIO experimentation in South Korea. OHMIO is a kind of autonomous shuttle that is currently in testing phase in South Korea and the current level of autonomy is 4. Since the vehicle is still under validation, a safety operator is mandatory on board, in case anything goes wrong. Nonetheless, the Korea Automobile Testing & Research Institute (KATRI) foresee the utilisation of more than 200 shuttles by the 2025. In order to get the license, it is required a proof of compliance with vehicle safety standards. The approval is divided into five steps: 1. Review of documents, including specifications and blueprints; 2. Submission of the required test reports. If 15 test reports are submitted, the KATRI will not request additional test reports for vehicle safety inspection; 3. Safety inspection of the vehicle, out of a total of 116 items required by the Korean Automobile Safety Standards; if any of the 116 items wishes to be excluded from the inspection, approval from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport must be obtained; 4. Autonomous driving performance test; 5. Issuing of operating licence. 3 The Italian legislation. National authorization process and legislative aspects In this paragraph the Italian authorization process is presented and how the legislation gaps for testing on public roads have been resolved by the Italian Authorities. The starting point was the work of the Italian Ministry of Sustainable Infrastructure and Mobility (Ministero delle Infrastrutture e della Mobilità Sostenibili - MIMS), with the Decree of February 28th 2018, “Smart Road Decree” that rules the experimentation of private AVs on the smart roads, defined as "road infrastructure for which a digital transformation process is carried out aimed at producing traffic observation and monitoring platforms, data and information processing models, advanced services for infrastructure managers, public administration and road users" [R3]. However, the Decree specified only the authorization for private transport. To achieve the authorization for testing AVs for public transport on public roads, Italy has recently adopted the Decree Sperimentazione Italia, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition (Ministero per l’Innovazione Tecnologica e la Transizione Digitale – MITD) [R4]. In the framework of the Decree, the core is the article 36, which contains "Urgent measures for simplification and digital innovation. The main scope of the Decree is the guarantee the experimentation to what is not disciplined inside the Smart Road Decree. For the supervision of the trial and final report, MITD monitors and verifies the experimentation, analyses the progress of the initiatives, the results achieved and the impact on the quality of the environment and life. At the end of the experimentation, the applicant must submit a report to the MITD illustrating the results of the monitoring and experimentation, as well as the economic and social benefits achieved. The MIMS has established the Technical Support Observatory (TSO) for Smart Roads and for the connected and autonomous vehicles. The role of the TSO is to provide an update on the activity carried out and on the state of the art of the initiatives identified on the national territory in the field of smart roads and connected and autonomous vehicles. In addition, the TSO approves “supervisors”, that are the only specific drivers allowed to drive for the testing. 4 The SHOW project. Focus on the case of Turin To demonstrate the possibility of a safe coexistence of traditional cars and AVs in terms of accidents, an interesting example is provided by the SHOW project in the Turin site, in which two autonomous shuttles circulating in public roads and mixed traffic have been authorized. The SHOW project (SHared automation Operating models for Worldwide adoption, https://show-project.eu/) aims to advance sustainable urban transport through technical solutions, business models and priority scenarios for impact assessment, by deploying shared, connected, electrified fleets of AVs in coordinated Public Transport (PT), Demand Responsive Transport (DRT), Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Logistics as a Service (LaaS) operational chains in real-life urban demonstrations all across Europe. In total, SHOW will deploy a fleet of more than 70 SAE L4 AVs in the eleven European countries (Germany, Spain, Sweden, France, Austria, Finland, Greece, Denmark, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy and Brussels) for both passenger and cargo transport in dedicated lanes and mixed traffic, connected to a wide range of supporting infrastructure (5G, G5, IoT) and operating under traffic speeds ranging from 18 to over 50km/h. A safety driver is always guaranteed on board. The following use cases will be implemented in Turin site: • Door-to-door transport of hospital patients in mixed traffic on public roads; • Presence of vulnerable road user on smart crossing equipped with C-ITS capabilities; • Traffic light priority to autonomous shuttle; • Connection to Operation Centre for remote supervision; • Link between the underground station and the hospital. The ecosystem of Turin experimentation is composed by different categories of stakeholders: OEM (Navya), public transport operator (GTT), technology providers (Swarco Italia, 5T, Ioki), research centre (LINKS Foundation), insurance company (Reale Group), local authority (Municipality of Turin) and TTS Italia – Italian ITS Association. TTS Italia is supporting LINKS Foundation, pilot site leader, in the dissemination activities and in the authorization process to test AVs in public roads. 4.1 Road context The AV fleet that will circulate in Turin is composed by two Navya Arma shuttles, with maximum operating speed estimated at 18 km/h. Turin experimentation will take place in the urban area of Turin, in condition of normal/high traffic density. The two AVs will arrive at the hospitals of ‘Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino’ passing in mixed urban traffic. After two months of technical validation tests on the road without passengers (pre-demo phase), the on-demand transport service on the autonomous shuttles will be provided for free to all interested passengers for a 4-month period, via an app booking [R7]. 4.2 Authorization The following bullets illustrate the prescriptions of the authorization granted by the MITD and MIMS to the Navya shuttles and the requirements to which the proposer must comply, in addition to those indicated in the application: • At the end of the planned two months of pre-demo (as indicated in the application), suspension of the experimentation of the autonomous shuttles, both in relation to their circulation and conduct, and in relation to the experimentation with the presence of passengers, should show important criticalities in terms of road safety and of the vehicles; • Production of a clear and editable report of the two months of experimentation, containing the information pursuant to article 12, letter e) of Ministerial Decree 70/2018, (MD 70/2018), as well as of the following four months relating to the second phase of experimentation; • Any accidents, anomalies, system malfunctions, or other criticalities related to the experimentation must be immediately represented by Gruppo Torinese Trasporti S.p.A. to the road owner / manager, the Department for Digital Transformation and the Ministry of Economic Development. 5 Conclusions and recommendations Testing the AVs on public roads is the key factor for enhancing this technology. This will surely bring new challenges for road operators, in enabling both physical, and digital infrastructure for smart traffic management, but will also lead to new opportunities and benefits. AVs will serve to decrease the percentage of in-car errors, mostly caused by human distractions. The main goal nowadays is to reach the zero deaths on public roads. Besides that, AVs’ nature of being mostly electric vehicles makes it even more important for the climate goal of the European recommendations, such as the European New Green Deal. This technology will be helpful for weak categories, such as the elderly, physically disabled or people such as visual impairments. Last but not least, AV technology could improve the car sharing and carpooling systems, in order to boost the sustainable and multi-modal mobility. All of these benefits will also create new business models, with an ever-increasing number of actors of the Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM) ecosystem. The new business models must be evaluated, before being sustained, and the approval will be reached only when a large part of the population will use the AVs. Criteria derived from societal targets must be met, and deployment needs to take place in cities, regions and nations [R1]. Legal national and international frameworks appear, then, to be essential for experimenting the AVs on urban roads. And these must incorporate all aspects of such autonomous mobility services, rather than individual vehicle functions. This approach will enable the safe transition to real-world operation in predefined areas in the near future. Additionally, new autonomous mobility services must be regulated in a way that wins the trust of all potential user groups. Only then, they have the potential to contribute to an overall more sustainable mobility system. The issues of ethics and liability still haven’t found a solution and international entities are still working on the recommendations. However, it appears fundamental for the single nations to start enabling road testing and to create a framework free from regulatory gaps, in order to be ready when there will be an international framework over the issues mentioned above. From the authors’ perspective, the Italian authorization process should be taken as a possible model for achieving a framework over tests on public roads [R8]. References: [1]. ERTRAC Working Group (2021). Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility Roadmap, Brussel, 2021; [2]. Law Commission (2022), Automated Vehicles: joint report, UK, 2022; [3]. Ministry for Sustainable Infrastructures and Mobility, (2018). Decreto Smart Road, Rome, 2018 [4]. Ministry for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition, (2020). Decreto Sperimentazione Italia, Rome, 2020; [5]. PIARC, (2020). Aspetti etici, sociali e di sicurezza della guida autonoma, 2020 [6]. Schaub. M., King & Wood Mallesons, (2021). China’s Legislation on Autonomous Cars Rolls out in China Law Insight, 2021 [7]. SHOW project deliverables: a. (2020). D1.2: SHOW Use Cases; b. (2021). D3.1: Analysis report on legal, regulatory, institutional frameworks; c. (2021). D3.4: SHOW updated Ethics manual & Data Protection Policy and Data Privacy Impact Assessment; [8]. TTS Italia, (2019). 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