Expert Comment

Professor Siddartha Khastgir Head of Safe Autonomy at WMG at The University of Warwick welcomes fast-forwarding self-driving pilots to 2026 and preventing misleading marketing, as announced by the Government today.

Professor Siddartha Khastgir, said: "I fully support the Government’s approach of both fast-tracking innovation while keeping a check on misappropriation. In order to aid wide-scale commercial deployment of self-driving technology by 2027, we need learnings from the field to create the scientific evidence and help build public trust. Pilots enable this to be done in a controlled manner.

“While we support to the Government’s decision to enable pilots of self-driving taxis and buses by Spring 2026, the success of these will only be realised if measures are put in place to enable learnings, data collection and enable sharing. We urge the Government to put in place practical but mandatory data sharing from the pilots. These learnings will help better define the safety threshold of a ‘careful and competent human driver’.

“Communicating safety is the cornerstone for ensuring the safety of self-driving technology. We are pleased to see that the consultation on misleading marketing for self-driving technology has been published. This consultation will help to clearly define terms, marks and expressions that should be reserved for authorised self-driving vehicles only.

“At PAVE UK, we believe that the true capabilities and limitations of self-driving technology must be introduced to the general public openly and honestly. This consultation and subsequent Statutory Instrument will play an important role in preventing false advertising and overselling of any self-driving products and services in the UK."

Read the Government’s announcement in full here: Driving innovation – 38,000 jobs on the horizon as pilots of self-driving vehicles fast-tracked - GOV.UK

Find out more about WMG’s Safe Autonomy research here: Safe Autonomy Research Group | WMG | University of Warwick