Automated Driving Systems 2.0: A Vision for Safety

The purpose of Automated Driving Systems 2.0: A Vision for Safety is to support the automotive industry, the States, and other key stakeholders as they consider and design best practices relative to the testing and deployment of automated vehicle technologies. Section 1 of ADS 2.0, Voluntary Guidance for Automated Driving Systems, contains 12 priority safety design elements. These elements were selected base on research conducted by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) universities, and NHTSA. Each element contains safety goals and approaches that could be used to achieve those safety goals. Entities are encouraged to consider each process for assessment, testing, and validation of the various elements. As automated driving technologies evolve at a rapid pace, no single standard exists by which an entity’s methods of considering a safety design element can be measured. Each entity is free to be creative and innovative when developing the best method for its system to appropriately mitigate the safety risks associated with their approach. To assist NHTSA and the public in understanding how safety is being considered by manufacturers and other entities developing and testing ADSs, NHTSA encourages documentation, recordkeeping, and disclosures that aid in that mission. The burden estimates contained in this notice are based on the Agency’s present understanding of the ADS market and the time associated with generating a self-assessment and voluntarily making a summary of that self-assessment public. As of November 16, 2017, there are 45 manufacturers that have registered with the State of California as licensed entities capable of testing automated systems. NHTSA expects that this number will continue to grow to 60 manufacturers, taking into account the addition of new entrants, and the fact that that many entities have already begun testing of automated vehicles and thus already included in this figure. The Agency expects much of the work associated with consideration of the safety element in the Voluntary Guidance to be an extension of good and safe engineering practices already in place. It therefore believes that manufacturers and other entities will have access to all the information needed to craft a Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment that discusses how the safety elements were considered and if they choose, release a summary of that assessment publicly. Of the manufacturers and other entities who voluntarily disclose this information, NHTSA anticipates that most manufacturers and other entities will post the disclosures online. This information collection revision takes into account the Voluntary Guidance’s applicability to Level 3-5 systems only, thus removing any burden associated with Level 2 systems that were included in the previous PRA. Additional changes include the removal of three safety elements from the Voluntary Guidance: Ethical Considerations, Privacy, and Registration and Certification. The Data Sharing aspect was also removed from the Data Collection safety element.

The latest form for Automated Driving Systems 2.0: A Vision for Safety expires 2021-05-31 and can be found here.