Canadian Legislative Issues
The recent Ontario budget – unveiled in late April – included initiatives in many different policy areas. Specifically, on the transport policy front, a significant investment (coming from this year’s budget in Canada’s largest province) towards autonomous vehicles (AV) is just the latest in a long line of government acknowledgments of the fast-approaching reality of AVs on Canada’s roads.
The province is investing $80 million over five years to create the AV Innovation Network, in partnership with Ontario Centres of Excellence. If all goes according to plan, the network will seek to capitalize on the economic potential of AVs and help the province’s transportation systems and infrastructure adapt to AV technology. Ontario’s investment will support industry-led AV R&D projects; create sites across the province to develop, test and validate the new technology, including a Demonstration Zone in Stratford; and attract and grow talent in the AV sector.
At the national level, the most recent federal budget out of Ottawa promised a slate of regulations to accelerate "the safe adoption of connected and autonomous vehicles", and Transport Minister Marc Garneau has asked the Senate Transport Committee to study the issue further.
For fleet managers, or anyone interested in our transport policy, the trend is clear: though perhaps years from widespread proliferation and adoption, AV technology is an acknowledged fact on the ground with which governments are coming to terms.
At a recent industry conference, Minister Garneau said "...we need to be ready for connected and automated vehicles...Disruptive technologies present huge challenges for the industries affected, the businesses displaced and the governments that need to regulate them."
Though we may be a long way from armies of robot driverless cars on Canada’s roads, the rapid progress of AV technology is forcing governments and private players to act. More than a century ago it took only a few decades for private vehicle ownership to spread from a tiny elite to the masses, and regulators in the early 1900s had to react to the new world. The same is happening today as AVs become less the realm of science fiction and more realistic by the day. Today’s fleet managers could be tomorrow’s AV administrators.
NAFA Fleet Management Association
http://www.nafa.org/