ITS2 Series Episode 3: Connected and Automated Vehicles – The Human Factor

Paul is one of the world’s leading journalists in intelligent transport systems, not only having a background in writing and talking about the industry but also running businesses delivering ITS solutions.

A trained broadcast journalist who worked as a presenter, newsreader and sports reporter on local and national radio and TV, Paul has been in the ITS sector for 20 years having run the operations of two radio traffic news companies.

Paul worked on the Travel Information Highway and delivered the Traffic Radio service for government as well as providing traffic reports for the vast majority of BBC and commercial radio stations across the UK and also working in Canada, Australia and the US. During that time, he introduced technology solutions such as the use of Floating Vehicle Data and app-based services.

He has since edited a global ITS magazine and produced high quality ITS-related podcast news programmes from events around the world as well as providing consultancy, writing and moderating services and operational management for a range of companies. He regularly comments on transport technology solutions on mainstream media.

Michael conducts interdisciplinary research at the boundary between robotics, neuroscience and computer vision and is a multi-award winning educational entrepreneur. Michael's research models the neural mechanisms in the brain underlying tasks like navigation and perception to develop new technologies in challenging application domains such as all-weather, anytime positioning for autonomous vehicles. Michael currently holds the position of Professor at the Queensland University of Technology, as well as Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow and Chief Investigator at the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision.

Dr Mahmood Hikmet is the Head of Research and Development at Ohmio and HMI Technologies and is tasked with overseeing and synchronising R&D activity for the autonomous vehicle program and all other areas of research. As a science communicator, Mahmood’s focus is on bringing across technical information to non-technical stakeholders. Throughout his career Mahmood has been closely involved with the direct development of IoT infrastructure for intelligent transportation and mobility. Most recently, Mahmood oversaw the development of the first 5G connected autonomous shuttle in the world in conjunction with Spark as well as the delivery of the largest 3d printed autonomous vehicle in the world, the Ohmio LIFT, to Christchurch Airport.

Mahmood holds a PhD in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Auckland.

Dr Siddartha Khastgir is the Head of Verification & Validation of CAV at WMG, University of Warwick, UK, leading various Collaborative R&D projects with industrial & academic partners. His research areas include test scenarios generation, safety, simulation based testing among many others. He represents the UK on various ISO Technical Committees and is the lead author for new ISO standards for Low-Speed Automated Driving (LSAD) systems (ISO 22737) and Taxonomy for ODD (ISO 34503). He is also the project leader for ASAM standardisation project - OpenODD.

He has received numerous national and international awards for his research contributions, including the prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, a seven year grant focused on safety evaluation of CAVs.