IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2020 - 17

project becomes one of substitution
of the driving task rather than positive transformation of mobility. The
SAE approach also sets the terms
for the governance debate. The relevant question is seen as one of
responsibility (in the narrow sense
-
of liability) for the car, not responsibility for future transport. For places
like streets and activities like moving, which are necessarily interactive
and collaborative, such an approach
may prove counterproductive. Johnson and colleagues recommend
approaches based on interdependence between human and machine
agents rather than autonomy [20]. To
the issue of cooperative driving, we
might also add the need to consider
cooperative approaches to transport
planning and the need to negotiate
the desirable uses of shared spaces
like roads, rather than presume that
the correct approach is one of technological disruption.
As an alternative to the car-centered paradigm, low-speed automated shuttles have begun to be
tested in many places in conditions
that are constrained, either by tight
geofencing or with the modification
of infrastructures to suit the technology. These shuttles are often
referred to by their developers as
"Level Four" vehicles, even though
their evolution was very different
from the modified cars that are now
being tested on public roads. These
vehicles never had a past life involving a human performing a "driving
task". As systems, their design is
closer to longstanding driverless
forms of transport - including light
rail and subway systems - that no
longer attract curiosity. They do not
quite fit into the SAE taxonomy, but
nevertheless represent real alternatives to automobile-based systems.
Historically speaking, levels formulations have been more successful in cases where the environment
can be constrained. For passenSEPTEMBER 2020

Furthermore, the SAE levels are
ger trains, many of which are now
sometimes deployed to refer to
automated and some of which are
types of software, types of journey,
driverless, there are four Grades of
responsibilities of drivers, parts of
Automation [21]. But the presumpjourneys or particular test condition is that other parts of the systions as well as the driving task.
tem are closed. London's Victoria
The dominant use, however, is to
Line has operated as an automated
define a type of vehicle system,
system since 1968. The Docklands
rather than a particular state or
Light Railway has had no onboard
operational mode in a particular
drivers since its launch in 1987. The
automation of these systems depends, crucially, on
tightly constrained operational design domains. Railway systems, which rely on
When companies promise "full
very simple, deterministic
automation, work because
autonomy," the SAE levels offer little
other agents k now their
help in holding them to account for
c
- a p a bi l i t ie s and limits.
But these environmental
what the promise means.
and social constraints are
lumped into an unspecified ODD, a nd therefore
deemphasized by the SAE levels.
context. In discussions with people
The ODD is only generally defined: as
working in the industry, vehicles
"Operating conditions under which
are often described as "Level Four"
a given driving automation system
when they are capable of operator feature thereof is specifically
ing this way under certain sets of
designed to function, including, but
conditions, but might also operate
not limited to, environmental, geoat other levels of automation under
graphical, and time-of-day restricdifferent conditions. Currently, sotions, and/or the requisite presence
called "Level Four" vehicles are
or absence of certain traffic or roadoften tested with a safety driver
way characteristics" [22]. This defiwho maintains actual responsibility
nition externalizes much of what is
for the system. Vehicles advertised
most important to the operation of
as "Level Four" are often not "eyes
real-world systems.
off," as the SAE category would
Level Five remains utopian - an
suggest. So when companies talk
ideal but unattainable end state. A
about achieving "full autonomy,"
car that can navigate the streets of
the SAE levels offer little help in
Phoenix, Arizona, would be disabled
holding them to account for what
by the complexity of Rome or New
that promise actually means.
Delhi. In reality, all systems will need
To address this common misuse
to operate within constraints. Selfthe 2016 version of J3016 added
driving vehicles will not just adapt to
that the levels are mutually-excluthe world as it is; to operate effecsive by "feature." Each automated
tively, the world around them will
feature has only one designation;
need to adapt too. Automated sysbut an entire "system" may have
tems only make sense in the context
features that operate at different levof their constraints, which means
els. This theoretically clean distincthat a category defining an uncondition between vehicles, systems, and
tional system is nonsensical.
features is however often blurred in
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2020

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