Deputy editor George Barker reports on a London Assembly Transport Committee meeting during which Christina Calderato (director of strategy) and Danny Price (director of sponsored services and regulatory compliance) gave evidence on behalf of Transport for London (TfL) on the role the city's transport authority will play in the regulation of automated vehicles.

If you have visited London recently, the chances are you will have spotted one of several automated vehicles (AVs) currently being tested on the capital's streets. You would be forgiven, then, for assuming that it will not be long until they are available to the public and their impending takeover is a foregone conclusion.

However, it is not as simple as that (these things rarely are). There are multiple layers of testing, approval and authorities involved in the trialling of AVs in the UK.

Currently, the Department for Transport (DfT) is conducting a trial of AVs – with the proviso that all vehicles have a safety driver present – that TfL has little authority over. The only thing that involves them is that the safety drivers must have a pre-existing license to operate commercial vehicles in London.

However, once usage begins in earnest, TfL will have some authority; while the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) will be the one in control of issuing licenses to operators, TfL will have to issue consent for them to operate in London.

Under supervision

Multiple service operators, including US-based Waymo, British company Wayve (in partnership with Uber) and China's Baidu, have been trialling autonomous vehicles in London's streets for several months now.  The caveat is that a supervising driver must always be present. 

Currently, only Wayve has bookings available via Uber under these trials, and only 15 vehicles for the entire city. When trying to book a ride, Highways found there was no way to do so directly. Instead, it was a case of signing up to an interest list, toggling on the option of AVs in the app settings, booking a ride and hoping that a Wayve is nearby and available. Spoiler alert: it didn't work.

While clearly incredible progress is being made, it may be some time before we see fully driverless rides approved for commercial use on the roads of London. The approval process for fully autonomous cars – separate to the current DfT trials using supervisors - was the subject of much discussion at the TfL transport committee.

Ms Calderato stressed that TfL has ‘no role' in the DfT trials currently underway, but added that it is ‘consistently asking' to be granted the powers to intervene in them.

She went on to outline the eventual process behind fully autonomous approvals, which TfL would be part of.

Ms Calderato said: ‘The process is that the applicants would apply to the [DVSA] for a permit and then that would come to us as the consenting authority. Then we would have a six-week window to consider that application and then decide whether to consent or, if we do not [consent], we provide written reasons. If we do not respond within that six-week window, then consent is deemed to have been given.'

An important distinction is that while TfL does act as a ‘consenting authority', it does not have as many powers over applications as the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA).  TfL also does not have a role in determining whether a vehicle is approved by the DVSA to apply to a ‘consenting authority' for use in its streets. Nor does it have a role in being able to suspend or withdraw those permits.

Ms Calderato told the committee: ‘The Department for Transport (DfT) and TfL are both clear that we expect operators to pre-engage with us before they put in that permit application, because, as you say, our powers are quite limited; they are different here than they are in a licensing space. We have this stop-go decision at the point of consent, but after that consent has been given and a permit has been issued, we have no further ongoing role once vehicles are out on the street.'

Fully autonomous delays

While applications for fully autonomous vehicle operation opened on 15 May, there are currently no vehicles listed under the Automated Vehicles Act 2024, and so far, no application has reached the point of seeking consent from TfL.

Another short-term issue apparently holding up proceedings is that TfL is delayed in creating a guidance document, which would set out what the authority expects from applicants so that it can grant consent for fully autonomous trials.

Ms Calderato revealed there wouldn't be a document ready for use ‘for some time'.

She added: ‘The way everybody envisages this working is that when those applications come to us, they look like what we expect them to look like, having had the guidance, having had that pre-engagement, and we are able to consent because they reflect what we have asked for. This is a very new system for all parties; we will learn from it as we go along.

‘We will try to be really robust in setting out the guidance. We do not want to be a blocker. We do not want to be refusing consent for everything, but we do want to make sure that – given that we do not have that ongoing power – that we can be as robust as we can.'

The division of responsibility

The issue of the division of responsibilities, however, seems to be a much longer-term challenge that could cause further problems down the line. Particularly on the issue of safety.

TfL made the case that it should be able to suspend operations if it sees something that is safety-related: ‘We really think that is an important power that we should have,' Ms Calderato added. 

When Ms Russell asked whether TfL could put conditions on DVSA's consent, it became clear that this also did not fall under the transport authority's purview.

Ms Calderato added: ‘Within the current regulation, safety is our absolute top priority; we want to make sure that we can have a Vision Zero level of safety. We are not responsible for the safety of these vehicles. That is something which is done by the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA), but we are trying not to look at this as a technology-led piece; this is more about modes of transport in London.' 

Currently, only drivers with existing licenses to operate commercial vehicles in London are able to act as safety drivers for AVs.

While the role of the authorities involved is subject to debate, they at least appear to agree the vehicles themselves have a role to play.

Ms Calderato told the committee that AVs should complement the existing public transport network rather than acting in competition with it, and that TfL needs to make sure that ‘we do get the benefits, but we do not see unintended consequences'.

She singled out the ‘potential safety benefits, particularly when you look on a vehicle-per-vehicle basis'.

One of the potential negatives was highlighted by Mr Price under questioning about the impact on black cab drivers.

Mr Price said that TfL believes ‘there is always going to be a place for driver-led taxis and PHVs [private hire vehicles]'.

‘The service that they are able to provide, it is really difficult to imagine that a lot of those services can be provided without a driver there, particularly luggage and accessibility. That is the first point. We do not know what the full effect will be. One of the things we are advocating, as we mentioned, is a very slow deployment.'

That last part, at least, does not seem to be too much of a problem.