The UTG Done Deal Credit Card Mandate Omni Shambles Rolls On….by Jim Thomas.
Last Thursday night, CMT’s complete system shut down and driver’s could not sign in, or clear a payment for hours.
Last Thursday night, CMT’s complete system shut down and driver’s could not sign in, or clear a payment for hours.
In the light of the plethora of evidence published in trade journals about the collusion between certain TfLTPH officials, allegedly bending over backwards to help Uber circumnavigate the requirements laid down by the Private Hire Act 1998, you would have thought there’d be no more skeletons left in the TfL closet. But you’d be wrong!
Andrew Jones, the Parliamentary Under-secretary for the Department of Transport finally answers written question to him made in July.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the letter of the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to the right hon. Member for Rotherham on 8 July 2016, on clause 145 of the Policing and Crime Bill, when the Government expects to publish a timetable for its (a) consultation on taxi and private hire vehicle licensing and (b) publication of guidance.
The Government expects to publish the timetable for the full public consultation on the local authority Best Practice Guidance for Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles in advance of Royal Assent of the Policing and Crime Bill. The government aims to launch the full public consultation upon Royal Assent of the Bill.
The Guidance will be published following completion of the full public consultation and once any amendments have been made.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will introduce new national regulations for private hire driver licences in line with Transport for London’s new regulations for private hire drivers which will come into force on 1 October 2016.
The Government wants to see taxis and private hire vehicles prosper in London and elsewhere. The regulations issued by Transport for London are a matter for them as the local licensing authority. The legislation that provides for licensing of taxi and private hire vehicle services is enabling in its nature, giving local licensing authorities the discretion to set standards that they deem to be appropriate for their area.
In a recent interview with MIT Technology Review, Hart said his agency’s experience investigating crashes involving automated planes and trains indicates humans can’t be fully removed from the control of personal vehicles.
A significant number of fatalities continue to result from train and plane crashes, and these modes of transportation are far easier to automate than personal vehicles since they operate in isolation from other vehicles, pedestrians and wildlife, as explained here.
Given the near-infinite number of hazards posed from a plethora of activities, vehicles, people, animals, and weather challenges, it may be impossible to fully automate personal vehicles, argues Hart.
“There’s no software designer in the world that’s ever going to be smart enough to anticipate all the potential circumstances this software is going to encounter,” says Hart.
“The dog that runs out into the street, the person who runs up the street, the bicyclist, the policeman or the construction worker, or the bridge that collapses in a flood—there is no way that you’re going to be able to design a system that can handle it.”
Beyond the challenge of addressing the complexity and spontaneity of roadway hazards by way of software programs, Hart highlighted the underlying problem of human error at every level of an automated transportation system.
By removing vehicle control from human drivers, the margin for human error is simply moved to the people designing the software, producing the hardware, and maintaining the vehicle, data networks, and infrastructure, he said.
“We investigated a people-mover accident in an airport,” explains Hart. “It collided with another people-mover. And our investigation found that the problem was a maintenance problem.
“Even if you eliminate the operator, you’ve still got human error from the people who designed it, people who built it, people who maintain it.”
The final difficulty that could halt the rollout of fully automated vehicles, Hart says, is the ethical questions that will have to be answered by the highest levels of government—whether, for example, a vehicle should be programmed to protect its occupants at any cost, or intentionally sacrifice the lives of its occupants to save the lives of pedestrians nearby.
“Those kinds of ethical choices will be inevitable,” concludes Hart.
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