Speakers: Olivia Walker, Head of City of Development and Nick Reed, Head of Mobility R&D - Bosch Global.

Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) more commonly referred to as driverless cars may seem like a faraway fantasy for city transport, but many aspects of the technology are already here in vehicles and some towns in America already have fully functioning connected autonomous systems. Although there may still be challenges around the safety of their intelligent systems, the need for 5G+ bandwidth and the sustainability of driverless vehicles, the technical aspects have largely been solved. The pilot phase is largely complete. This is potentially the biggest revolution in transport since the invention of the internal combustion engine: these systems could turn our city transport systems upside down in terms of ‘mobility as a service’, another new concept that CAVs bring. Perhaps most importantly there is the political angle: who will own and regulate the vehicles and the systems which run them and will people accept them as part of the transport mix?

Bosch are a world leader in patent development in autonomous systems. Mobility represents 60% of their business activity – finding sustainable ways of getting around through utilizing technology and service development. Olivia and Nick will look at these technical and political issues and how these systems interact in the existing world.