A new government consultation on self-driving vehicle technology is likely to have implications for the future of fleet risk management, according to the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP).
The consultation covers ‘taxi, private-hire and bus-like services’ of self-driving vehicles, which will be allowed on UK roads can from spring 2026 in a fast-tracked pilot programme.
AFP chair Paul Hollick said that although relatively few of the organisation’s members run passenger-carrying vehicles, the consultation would still be of interest since it represented the first wave of UK driverless vehicle adoption.
He said: “The scope of the exercise is quite wide ranging, looking at what the consultation describes as the challenges and benefits of driverless vehicles. Its outcome and the subsequent trials could directly impact on whether, for example, these vehicles must always be used with a remote safety driver or allowed to operate entirely autonomously.
“Issues such as this will in the medium-term probably have significant ramifications for our members in both operational and risk management respects.”
Hollick said the consultation could help to establish general guidelines that affect all fleets in the future.
He said: “This is technology that has potential applications for everyone from panel van to benefit car fleets and the phase we are now entering will probably determine core expectations about safety, competence and utility. It could well define some important baselines.
“There are very big questions to be answered from a fleet risk point of view, that we may now start to see resolved. At the most fundamental level, fleets will want to know whether it is safe to put employees in driverless vehicles, how it affects the risk of injury to them and to other road users, and how their insurers will view its adoption?”
