Russia is not ready for unmanned vehicles

Tests of unmanned vehicle "Yandex" in Las Vegas ( January 2019 )

According to the latest KPMG report , Russia dropped in the rating of readiness for unmanned vehicles to 22nd place out of 25 countries for which experts measured relevant indicators. The country ranked last in terms of the availability of technology and innovation and the last but one in terms of the quality of roads . But in terms of the willingness of the population to transfer to autonomous transport, Russia entered the top five world leaders.

Although for the year Russia has dropped from 18th place to 22nd, but this is a very relative indicator. In fact, objectively Russia has risen slightly in the ranking, ahead of Brazil, just added five new countries to it, as can be seen in the table.


But still the position is very low. Given the willingness of the population to transfer to unmanned vehicles, the final result was affected by a lag in other key indicators. In addition to the quality of roads and the availability of technology, these are:
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• level of technology support by regulatory authorities;
• 4G network coverage;
• partnerships between automakers and technology suppliers.

Unlike most European countries, Russia has a successful project of its own unmanned vehicle, but in fact, in terms of its readiness to adopt this technology, Russia is the last in Europe, even behind Hungary.

“In Russia, steps are being taken both at the legislative level and at the level of individual companies (for example, Yandex), but to translate pilot technology into commercial operation, much larger investments, changes in legislation, and active international cooperation are needed,” said Alexey Romanenko , Head of Practice for work with infrastructure and transport enterprises of KPMG in Russia and the CIS.

Artyom Fokin, director of business development for unmanned vehicles of Yandex, questioned the fairness of the audit firm’s methods and recalled that the country had two test zones for drones in Skolkovo and Innopolis, where they can be ordered through the app, just like a regular taxi. This is almost nowhere.

In addition, the study does not report on the test site on the territory of FGUP NAMI for testing technologies of connected and highly automated transport, said Alexander Gurko, co-leader of the Avonet working group of the National Technology Initiative (NTI).

Olga Uskova, President of the Cognitive Technologies Group of Companies, believes that “the position of our country is highly appreciated,” given that Russia does not take any systemic measures aimed at developing the industry, and there are no real plans in the field of legislative regulation of the industry.