Research Roadmap

Mapping the open questions that will decide what driverless transport means for the UK

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5 areas23 themes65 questions
Economics & ProductivityService CostsQ1: How quickly are AV costs likely to fall, and when could they become cheaper than existing transport?Q2: What are the key remaining uncertainties about the total lifetime cost of an AV?Q3: How do we best design an AV trial to understand the full operating costs?Q4: Under what conditions will people prefer owning or exclusively leasing an AV to renting on a ride-by-ride basis from a fleet operator?Supply Chain & CompetitionQ5: Where is value captured in the supply chain which provides autonomous transport services?Q6: Which parts of the AV supply chain and services ecosystem are winner-takes-most?Q7: Where in the AV supply chain and services ecosystem does the UK have comparative advantage?Economic DisruptionQ8: Which new business models become viable if AVs make transport massively cheaper or decoupled from human working hours?Q9: Which business sectors will lose out as AVs change travel patterns?Public SectorQ10: Which parts of the public sector will make savings from AV adoption for services and staff travel?Q11: How would various options for taxing autonomous journeys affect public revenue, travel choices and who pays?Social ChangeAccess & InclusionQ12: Which groups stand to gain most freedom or independence from AVs as a transport option?Q13: Which features of an end-to-end autonomous transport service are necessary to make it accessible to those with disabilities or different abilities to use digital technologies such as smartphones?Q14: Which levers can public bodies use to make AVs accessible to groups who have lower ability to pay but who benefit more from access?Q15: What is the path of rollout of AV services to rural areas?Public-Private Transport MixQ16: Under what conditions would autonomously driven demand-responsive transport be cheaper than existing fixed-route public transport services?Q17: Which choices will determine whether AVs complement public transport services rather than compete with them?Q18: What features of transport services, including AVs in the transport mix, will enable families to give up private car ownership?Q19: How could the order in which different AV services arrive affect car ownership and public transport use in the long run?Q20: Which factors determine whether congestion is made worse or better by AVs?Trust & SafetyQ21: How will pedestrians and cyclists interact with AVs?Q22: How many road injuries and deaths would we expect at varying levels of AV adoption and use?Q23: How do AVs compare to other road safety interventions on cost-benefit analyses?Q24: What will be the determinants of whether AV operators earn and maintain public trust?Pattern of LifeQ25: What types of activity will people choose to do whilst riding as AV passengers?Q26: What are the consequences of AVs becoming productive working spaces relative to driving oneself?Q27: How will access to AVs change where people choose to live, work and spend their free time?Built EnvironmentQ28: How will AVs change the need for parking space?Q29: How do AVs change kerb and land use in dense urban environments?Q30: Which factors determine whether AVs increase or decrease transport-related emissions and pollution?Job DisplacementCurrent Professional DriversQ31: How many driving jobs will AVs replace, in which industries and how soon?Q32: Could cheaper, more available AV taxis grow demand sufficiently that there is more, rather than less, work for human drivers?Q33: Will AVs push existing drivers out of work or mainly reduce opportunities for new drivers?Q34: How could losing occasional driving income affect people’s studies, creative work or search for another job?Continuing Human RolesQ35: Where will human drivers still provide irreplaceable services as part of the transport network?Q36: What would keep human drivers available for busy periods if AVs handle most routine trips?Wider Labour MarketQ37: How do driverless vehicles intersect with driver shortages, especially in logistics?Q38: Will jobs created by the AV industry fit the location and working pattern needs of displaced drivers?Q39: To what extent does professional driving form part of the UK's employment safety net and how will this function be recreated if demand for professional drivers is significantly reduced?Q40: Do AVs as a transport option meaningfully change the pool of potential workers who are able to access certain jobs?Transition SupportQ41: What types of support are possible and appropriate for those who do lose income from driving professionally?Q42: What policy mechanisms are available to protect those who are disadvantaged professionally by the introduction of AV services?Security & GeopoliticsSovereignty & National SecurityQ43: Will Britain become dependent on AV services for any key activities and what fallback options will exist if a supplier fails or withdraws?Q44: How could hostile states use AV suppliers to disrupt services or gain access to sensitive data?Q45: Would restricting AV providers from non-allied countries improve security enough to justify higher costs or a slower rollout?Systemic RisksQ46: How much disruption would a widespread AV failure cause, and how likely is it?Q47: What are the effects of market concentration on the resilience of AV-based transport systems?Q48: How should transport and security authorities divide responsibility for spotting AV risks and acting on them?Lifetime Support & AssuranceQ49: What must suppliers provide so fleets can stay safe and usable throughout a vehicle's life?Q50: What do appropriate continuous assurance practices look like for automated driving software?Crime & PolicingQ51: What opportunities for criminal misuse of AV services emerge given the lack of human staff present?Q52: How should AVs respond when police or emergency crews need them to stop, move or change course?Privacy & DataQ53: When do AV services need audio or video recordings that identify people to keep journeys safe?Q54: Who should be allowed to access audio or video recordings made by AV services?International CooperationQ55: What cross-border agreements must be in place to facilitate international AV freight?Speed of RolloutRegulation & AssuranceQ56: What evidence shows an AV service is ready to run more vehicles or tackle harder driving conditions?Q57: How do we best balance regulatory friction with improved service quality from closer regulatory oversight?InvestmentQ58: What are the major causes of uncertainty preventing further investment in developing AV services across sectors?Path to ScaleQ59: How can we identify which AV trials are most promising and what is the most effective support for enabling them to advance?Q60: Which elements of AV services will still require humans to successfully complete passenger or goods journeys end to end?Q61: What types of sites are required for AV services to operate and how easily available are these sites in existing areas?Q62: Under what conditions is it valuable to adapt roads to suit AVs rather than waiting for the technology to advance further?Q63: What is the mid-case expectation for uptake of AVs across each sector of activity in the coming years?Q64: Which policy decisions will have the greatest impact on AV uptake by sector?Wider ImpactsQ65: Which are the key public bodies that should already be anticipating the impact of AVs on their own work and who within those organisations should lead a response?All areas

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The Roadmap

Explore the questions

Introduction

Why a research roadmap?

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are becoming a transport option in the UK. In London, customers can now take supervised rides in a small fleet of Wayve vehicles through Uber, with a licensed driver on board. Waymo and Baidu are preparing services in the capital, while Uber, Pony.ai and Verne have begun testing in Manchester. These are early steps, but they sit within a much larger international shift. The same technology is poised to reshape bus services, logistics and freight, changing how we move both people and goods.

AVs offer the opportunity for transport to be massively safer and cheaper, and to free up time that millions of people spend every day driving when they would rather be doing something else. But the disruption could also expose risks we have not yet recognised and cause severe harm to those who currently rely on driving for their way of life. How the transition develops is still to be determined. The best moment to shape that future is now. We have much more room to act while services and markets are still forming, and the questions in this Roadmap are intended to give people a way to start doing that.

Read the full introduction

Overseas deployments show how quickly services can grow. Waymo now reports fully autonomous operations across 15 cities. Pony.ai reports that paid orders in Shenzhen by mid-February 2026 exceeded its total for 2025, alongside a 70% reduction in the component cost of its latest autonomous driving system. Falling hardware costs are one part of the economics; the cost of providing a complete transport service remains a central question.

That's where this Roadmap begins: how quickly are AV costs likely to fall, and when could they become cheaper than existing transport? Once these services are cheap enough and useful enough, demand will likely grow quickly. We will pass a tipping point. How quickly will depend on where they are used and the choices we make about policy, investment and service design, so getting a better answer will help organisations work out how much time they have to prepare.

We launched the Institute for Driverless Transport in April 2026 to help people work out what this change means for them and the organisations they work with. The Roadmap draws on dozens of interviews and wider conversations over the past six months. We have spoken to the operators already bringing AVs to London and the regulators shaping the policy environment in which they operate. Alongside those wider conversations, formal interviews for the Roadmap have brought in academics, logistics businesses, unions, local authorities, security specialists, civil society organisations and more.

We've found a sector that is generous with its time and keen to welcome new voices and new research, and we want to build on that openness. One thing that has become clearer through these conversations is just how far the consequences reach into jobs, public services, the built environment and national resilience. Many of the people working in those areas haven't had much reason to think about AVs before, but their knowledge is going to be essential to asking the right questions, designing services that work for people and preparing for the disruption. We want to bring them into the conversation while they can still help shape what happens next.

The Roadmap brings together 65 questions to help turn that opportunity to act into practical work. For each one, we ask: if we had a better answer, who would make a different decision? For example:

These are questions for people who may never have thought of AVs as part of their job, but whose decisions will help shape what happens. They lead to the question with which the Roadmap ends: which public bodies should already be anticipating the impacts on their work, and who within them should lead a response? If that touches your responsibilities, now is the time to start.

What next?

What next?

If you find a question here that speaks to a decision you're trying to make, use it to start a conversation with the people who could help answer it and those who will live with the consequences.

For AV developers and operators, answering these questions can help identify viable markets, design useful services and reduce uncertainty around investment. Support research that produces the evidence policymakers, businesses and the public can scrutinise and trust. That connects directly to Question 24, which asks what will determine whether operators earn and maintain public trust, because public consent matters both to securing permission to operate and to running services without disruption. Bringing researchers and affected communities into that work now will help you understand what it takes to earn that trust.

For public-sector leaders, bring AVs into the decisions you are making today. If you are developing a strategic plan that will shape your area for decades, or planning skills provision in response to AI's disruption of the labour market, these questions belong in that work. Identify the questions that could change your plans and bring the relevant colleagues into the conversation.

For researchers, you don't need to have worked on AVs before to have something valuable to contribute. If you find a question where your expertise could make a difference, we'd love to hear what you could bring to it and what funding, data or partnerships would help you get started.

Our next step is to bring funding, researchers and practical partners together. We want commercial operators and businesses that may adopt AVs or be disrupted by them to support research relevant to their decisions, alongside philanthropic and research funding for questions whose benefits are shared across society. Philanthropic support from Emergent Ventures has already made this first stage possible. We can't answer these questions alone, but we can help make introductions and build partnerships, so if you have funding, evidence or a practical setting to offer, we'd be glad to hear from you.

We have an opportunity to shape a future in which driverless transport gives more people more freedom, makes our economy more productive and works for the communities it serves. This Roadmap is a place to start, not a solution. But together, the work of shaping the path of this technology for the maximum possible benefit starts now.

What's missing?

Help us improve the Roadmap

This is a first edition. Suggest research, data or trials for any question, or tell us about a question we haven't asked.

Or email team@institutefordriverlesstransport.co.uk.

How we use what you send

We use what you send only to improve the Research Roadmap and, if you ask us to, to reply to you. It is stored in a Google Sheet that only the Institute for Driverless Transport team can open, and sent to our team inbox.

Your name, email and organisation are optional. We will not publish them, pass them to anyone else or add you to a mailing list. We keep submissions for up to two years, then delete them.

To see, correct or delete what you sent, email team@institutefordriverlesstransport.co.uk.

What would you like to tell us?

Who we spoke to

Thank you

This Roadmap was built from more than 30 conversations with councils, operators, industry, unions, charities, insurers, lawyers and universities.

We are grateful to everyone who gave their time, their questions and their challenge. The Roadmap is better for every one of those conversations.

Taking part does not mean endorsing the Roadmap. Any errors are ours.

Research Roadmap, first edition, October 2026. Institute for Driverless Transport. Cite as: Institute for Driverless Transport (2026). Research Roadmap. First edition. institutefordriverlesstransport.co.uk/research-roadmap
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