Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the Society for Automotive Engineer’s Six Levels of Vehicle Autonomy and the level of current Automated Lane Keeping Systems in England (ALKS); and how his Department plans to determine ALKS technology’s compliance with Section 8 of the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act before listing ALKS vehicles as automated.

No assessment has been made against the Society of Automotive Engineers’ (SAE) levels and how they relate to Automated Lane Keeping Systems (ALKS). In a Call for Evidence held in 2020, the Department sought views on the “monitoring and control tests” to inform the Secretary of State’s decision on whether vehicles with ALKS technology meet the definition of automation under the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018. There was strong support for the criteria set out and the Department will publish a response outlining the process for making decisions in due course.