Driverless trucks on Europe's roads - 20th January 2023

For the first time in Europe, the Swedish truck producer Scania has started experimenting with driverless vehicles. At this point, a person remains in the driving seat, but the truck's controlling itself - it's 'autonomous'.

From the outside, the lorry appears to be fairly ordinary. However, the roof's full of cameras and special sensors, called 'lidars'. Inside the driver's cabin there's GPS and sensor equipment. This directs information to a computer, which is used to control the vehicle. Göran Fjällid's on Scania's engineering team.

Göran Fjällid: "This was a normal truck but they have put a lot of sensors in the truck. This was a lidar. It was a light and the second lidar and we have the third lidar in the front."

Göran Fjällid: "And we have the other sensor in the roof. It was 10 cameras and one lidar, long distance lidar, and we have GPS and some other sensors."

If the truck has a problem, Scania can respond from its control centre. Another option is for the driver to take control, by just touching the accelerator pedal.

Auto companies are competing with one another to create driverless vehicles. The world is short of drivers - in 2021, 2.6 million places were unfilled. According to Scania's vice president, Peter Hafmar, autonomous vehicles are one solution and on top of that, they offer safety and environmental benefits.

Peter Hafmar: "Then we'll also have safety. The computer and the sensor sets are very safe so they don't get distracted with check their phones or something like that. And also they have the environmental aspect that, well we don't have to focus on drivers' hours. We can drive all 24/7 and we can reduce the speed, which then reduce the energy consumption, so we don't have to charge the vehicle."

There's still work to be done. For one thing, countries have a range of different transport laws, but within the next 10 years, autonomous vehicles will be a common sight.