Autonomous vehicles are presently dominating the headlines with the likes of Google, Uber, and Tesla pushing to produce the first fully autonomous car. It’s predicted that autonomous cars will be on our roads by 2022 with trials already being done around the World.
However autonomous vehicles are not just about being driverless, they can also provide key data authorities can use to ensure a city runs smoothly and efficiently. Autonomous cars and smart cities are intrinsically linked and will only truly achieve their full potential when they seamlessly interact. As cities need to use this real-time data to become truly smart, it creates its own challenges for sensor technologies and the interface between the autonomous vehicle and the smart world.
There are four main types of data that can be collected by a smart city from an autonomous car:
- Non-sensitive data – this will be data like congestion data, parking availability
- Personal – location and biometrics details that can be used to access the car and its services
- Special category data – data collected during a collision calling of the emergency services by the car providing information about the passengers and if they have any specific needs
- Commercial sensitive data – data specific to the manufacturer (linked to securing their IP) which will enable them to review how the autonomous car is functioning and flag any issues