Autonomous Road Vehicles

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, of course we welcome the cutting-edge nature of transport innovation in the rail sector. In particular my noble friend talked about the new systems and operations at Heathrow and the pods being used there. There are also other parts of the rail network such as the DLR and the new rolling stock from Siemens that will be coming on line on Thameslink. There will be a use of technology and autonomous vehicles in what I believe will be controlled environments. He mentioned further innovations on the wider network. We need to see how technology can be adapted on existing systems while recognising that the interface with the people who work in the rail sector is equally important, and look at how their skills can be adapted in line with the technologies we are now seeing across the system.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, is there any function of a train driver that cannot theoretically be safely automated?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, as I have already said, the DfT is not looking at any particular study. Train drivers across the network, across the country and beyond play a very important role. We are seeing the outlay and the new driver-only operated trains coming on board. As I have already said, we need to embrace technology and look at how the employee interface works with it. We are seeing some very good examples across the country.