We have three main challenges going forward.
People will live more and more in the cities,
which will lead to congestion, pollution,
and the need for transport will be even higher than today.
Second is road safety, and finally climate change.
I really believe that automation will be one of the main contributors
to solving the challenges we face.
What is automation?
The first thing people think of is a self-driving truck,
but that is not necessarily the case.
We are developing solutions for the driver.
We are developing solutions that will be able to take over tasks from the driver,
as well as solutions to have self-driving trucks.
For us, it's important that all of these solutions
are within the frame of automation.
As a cognitive scientist, I want to understand
how the driver takes on this complex task.
We are running several automation projects today,
spanning from the deepest mine, transport on highways
to a garbage truck in the city.
For us, it's important that as many as possible gain from this technology,
and not only the companies and industries
but also individual citizens and the drivers driving our trucks.
We've been running tests for years,
collecting and analysing a huge amount of data,
covering every scenario we could think of.
We will never release anything that we do not trust.
So when you meet our automated trucks on the road, I want you to feel safe.
We have come up with dozens of innovations,
but it is sometimes the craziest idea that will be the most successful.
Whatever we develop must serve a purpose
for the drivers, our customers and society.
It would be so much easier if I wasn't constantly running from place to place,
and that's what I feel I'm doing.
Whenever I'm in a meeting, I have one eye on the clock.
I'm adding an extra 20 minutes for traffic,
just in case I don't make it back for that school run and my child is left.
So that's a very real worry.
Transportation is really the lifeblood, the pulse,
for business and the people,
and I believe that in the near future
we will start to see self-driving trucks on our roads
transporting goods and starting to become a part of our society.
I foresee that different hubs, it can be a city to another city,
will be connected and we will have autonomous vehicles
most probably in dedicated lanes at nighttime.
In the city centres, in urban areas, we will have smaller, quiet vehicles,
and through that we will create a future transport ecosystem
where everything will be connected.
It's exciting to know that that sort of technology is on the horizon,
that we are going to have driverless safer vehicles,
we're going to have cleaner, more efficient vehicles.
What does it take to trust the next step in technology?
I think we need faith.
We're having drones. We have far more automated machinery.
We're going to start seeing that sort of innovation in all sorts of areas.
So I think we just need to be brave enough to accept the next step.