Smart Mobility Summit

The Telegraph Smart Mobility Summit on Wednesday - 12th Nov at The Hilton, London


We had two fantastic keynotes in the shape of Florence Eshalomi, deputy chair, London Transport Committee and Alejandro Agag, CEO, Formula E Holdings, opening and closing the day respectively. 

The panel discussions provided lively debate, aided with intuitive questions from the audience, whilst the interactive roundtables and presentations supplied some great food for thought.

• Paul Copping, chief innovation officer, Digital Greenwich

Smart mobility is a very broad area of opportunity for local government services and we are likely to be the market makers for volume deployments. We can take an integrated approach to low carbon autonomy, inclusivity, energy management, space utilisation and emissions. In this way local government can take an active integration role in delivery and strongly influence the overall citizen experience of future technologies. Generally, we love disruptive technology, which can bring dividends in terms of cost reduction and more effective delivery. So there is no threat to local government in my view, but those most at risk are suppliers who fail to innovate.

• Matthew Avery, director of research, Thatcham Research Centre, 

 Insurers have a pivotal role to play. As having insurance for your vehicle is a legal requirement there will be a need to move to a more strict liability-type system, where insurance risk focuses on the car and less the driver. Also, under the terms of the Automated and Electric Vehicle Bill, insurers will be obliged to cover automated vehicles, even though a driver may not be in control. Therefore, the provision of insurance needs to change, and the industry is working very closely with the Government around this. However, if insurers are taking on the potential risk of an automated vehicle, they need to be convinced and ensure firstly that they are safe, and secondly that data is openly accessible to identify who was driving at the time of the collision.

• Frantz Saintellemy, president and chief operating officer, LeddarTech, 

Autonomous vehicles are no longer the stuff of sci-fi novels and movies, and are fast becoming a reality. Google’s self-driving cars, now called Waymo, were first trialled on US roads in 2015 and Ford, Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors recently collaborated on similar trials using the latest technology on public roads in Coventry.

Key to the success of autonomous cars is for the vehicle to be able to view its surroundings in 360 degrees, just as a human driver does. For this, LiDAR (light detection and ranging) technology plays a vital role alongside other technologies such as radar, camera and GPS. Simon Ellison, technology capability director, Costain, 

• Kirsty Lloyd-Jukes, chief executive officer, Latent Logic, 

Latent Logic is an Oxford start-up that builds realistic AI-based human behaviour models to enable safe testing of autonomous vehicles. Kirsty Lloyd-Jukes, an experienced automotive entrepreneur and chief executive officer of the company, answers questions on government investment and the regulation frameworks that are taking shape.

• Katy Medlock, head of UK, Drivy, 

Spearheading the company's growth in the car hire industry, Katy Medlock is passionate about the environment and reducing the number of vehicles on the UK's congested roads.

Ms Medlock took the time to talk to The Telegraph on how Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) models are shaking up the sector and the role that Drivy is playing in the transport revolution