Framework for Assessing Health Impacts of Self-driving Vehicles

Autonomous vehicles (AV) are the future in the automobile industry, and there's a huge discussion about the impacts on transportation, the economy, society, and the environment. However, less attention has been focused on self-driving vehicles' potential health impacts, reports a new study. The findings of the study are published in the journal Sustainable Cities and Society.// Researchers have developed a conceptual model to recognize these health impacts systematically. They identified 32 transportation-related risk factors that influenced health and concluded that 17 could adversely impact public health, while 8 could have a positive impact. There were 7 areas of unknown implications that require additional investigation.

"A study on the receptiveness of autonomous vehicles' impacts revealed that there is no awareness of the potential health impacts of AVs," stated Soheil Sohrabi, a doctoral student. "On the other hand, there are few unintended consequences of AVs' implementation that require to be studied before AVs discover their way onto the road."

The study authors created a conceptual model to systematically recognize the pathways through which AVs can affect public health.

In optimistic views, autonomous vehicles are expected to prevent 94 percent of traffic crashes by reducing driver error, but AVs' operation introduces novel safety issues like the potential of malfunctioning sensors in identifying objects, misinterpretation of data, and poorly executed responses, which can endanger the reliability of autonomous vehicles and cause serious safety results in an automated environment.

"Given the very fast-paced investigation related to AVs, this study provides very good preliminary guidelines about how AVs can adversely and positively impact the general health of people before their full deployment," stated the study author. "Hence, engineers, planners, and policymakers can already consider measures and policies that could decrease the negative health effects."

More research is needed in the future to clarify the public health impacts of AVs more accurately. This study was primarily concentrated on urban areas and did not consider the effects of AVs in rural areas.

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Source-Medindia