 Welcome to the ITU studio in Geneva, we're here for the Future Network car which is being held here at the ITU headquarters and I'm very pleased to be joining the studio today by Ian Yarnold who is Head of Vehicle Standards for the UK Department for Transport. Ian welcome to the studio. Thank you. Now Ian I'd like to start off by talking about regulation, an aspect of transport innovation which I'm sure you're very familiar with. What are the most interesting regulatory questions brought on by contemporary transport innovation? Gosh, tough question. I guess automation is that issue of how do we make automation work in a safe, consistent way so that consumers can have confidence that the vehicles are going to be as safe as the ones they know now but have the confidence that they will be able to do things for them in a more holistic way I guess. It's a real challenge though. And how has that been done in practice? Well through the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the UNECE, through their working parties and their technical committees that's a really great way of bringing together industry regulators and NGOs to make sure that we're building a consensus view on the best way forward. It's a real challenge though. And the work of the ITU study groups, how does that feel into the work that you're doing on a regular basis? In the last few years increasingly over cybersecurity, software security especially and this issue of automation, the ITU has become a really major partner in those work streams. If we go back 20 years, ITU wasn't that much engaged because it was very much focused on the hard engineering aspects of vehicles as we're moving more towards software, computer control and we move into this world of automation. So the ITU is becoming increasingly a major partner in the work of regulators because that's really where a huge amount of the knowledge rests. Now let's talk about responsibilities. How are the responsibilities of different regulators converging and how are regulators managing these conversions? Well through collaboration and cooperation and discussion. Vehicles are manufactured on a global basis, same products go into a huge number of different markets and so from a manufacturer's point of view it's crucial that we don't end up with 50, 60, 70 different sets of standards that are only minor changes but add incredibly to the cost of the vehicle. So regulators and those people responsibility, the authorities, understand how crucial it is that we bring together the relevant experts into a single place and globally it's the ITU and the UNECE to do that. They have the mechanisms to deal with the international or the global approach and so the UK has been participating in the UNECE and the ITU for many, many years and we see that progressing and building on that in the future. Now we talk about standards in technology, we're all getting to see more that it is being standardised in terms of our mobile phones, we can plug them into a similar standard charger etc but a lot of the standards that we're talking about here are very much under the bonnet, very much not visible to the general consumer. Isn't that right? With regards to order movies I'm talking about. Yeah, but is that any different than what we've had for the last 30, 40, 50 years, you know, would a consumer know how anti-lock breaking systems work? Would they know how an airbag works? And the question is, do they need to know and in some things they do need to know. So if you just think about airbags they need to understand what the issues are of airbags with child restraint systems. So the vehicle manufacturers put labels, put information into the vehicle to make sure the consumers understand the really basic information they need to use that safety system in the best possible way. Now there's a real challenge then around automation and I think a lot of work needs to be done to think about that. As digital transformation has accelerated we've heard regulators highlighting the importance of learning. I wanted to ask you how has this done in practice and how do regulators give intelligent transport innovators a space to experiment? It's a challenge. It goes back to one of the earlier questions where we talked about how do you ensure that the vehicle is safe? And the way I describe this is in my own role in the UK Department of Transport I would have to convince one of our government ministers who would probably look me in the eye and ask me, is this safe? And I would have to have the confidence to look them back in the eye and say yes it's safe. And so I've got to be satisfied as I have a number of my colleagues that these systems are as safe as we can make them. But we know that and it's been evidenced by the conference today that you can't have absolute safety. You can't assure yourself because the systems are now so incredibly complicated. You rely on computer algorithms so how do you prove that this is safe? And there will have to be I think and we're seeing this already in other markets around the world where innovators are given space to do the development. But it needs that kind of courageous step to allow that to happen and I think you can't do that in a consistent way. I think each government, each authority will have to take that decision in their own right based upon what it is that's being proposed. Is it a small vehicle that's only going to be moving at a low speed or is it going to be a more sophisticated vehicle moving at high speed and what are the relative risks of that to the population at large or to vulnerable road users, to pedestrians etc and I think it will be on a case by case basis. And it's not just going to be the cars, it's going to be the roads as well, is it? They're going to have to have these safety features built into them. Well they're going to have to be connected so you're going to have to have 5G systems or whatever the latest technology might be as we move forward so that the vehicles know exactly where they are and know what's going on around them. They're surroundings so that they can then take action according to what's going on around them. And finally what are your predictions for the future of mobility and what should we be expecting as consumers? Oh what should we expect? I think 10 years ago and I've said this already at the conference, 10 years ago manufacturers of vehicles were telling us that we'll have fully automated vehicles in 10 years and here we are 10 years on and we still haven't got them and we heard earlier today it might be 10, 20, 30 years before we get there or indeed we may not get there completely. So I think as we progress over the next decade or more we will see increasing levels of what are called advanced driver assistance systems or ADAS so more technology built into the vehicle to help the driver with the driving task. Now some of those may take control of the vehicle for short periods of times and the very specific circumstances say on a high speed road with the traffic's all going in a single direction but bit by bit we will move towards that notion of full automation and then alongside that in urban areas I think we're going to see more personal mobility. You will be aware of the kind of rising electric scooters or mobility platforms however you want to describe them and that's a bit of a challenge for governments at the moment in terms of how do you allow that to happen but ensure that the public the pedestrian's vulnerable road use and such like remain safe and so it's again another challenge but I think in urban areas that's going to become one of the big issues over the next decade making that happen in practice. Well thank you for letting us make this happen and taking the time to be with us in the studio and hopefully we'll catch up with you again in the near future perhaps with some new innovations with a little bit further down the line and yes we very much do forward to it and thanks for joining us here at the Future Network casting position. It's my pleasure. Thank you very much. Cheers.