Soccorso e mezzi di trasporto autonomo

In recent times, the process of automation of the various human activities has had an impressive acceleration. Also in the field of transport we are going to witness a growing trend to- wards automation, in some areas more evident and already partly regulated, such as in air navigation, in others at the stage of first analysis of compatibili- ty with the current international and internal regulations. In this regard, the European Parliament has included both automated and re- mote piloted vehicles in the notion of autonomous vehicle, acknowledging that autonomous transport is a phenomenon that now involves both air, water navi- gation and ground transport. Likewise the APR, even waterborne unmanned vehi- cles, are supposed to be used in dangerous, dull and dirty scenarios, in which it may be dangerous to send a ship with a crew. Among these are traditionally in- cluded many rescue hypotheses, in which there is a danger of damage also for the salvor, or repetitiveness and length of the operations themselves. In this framework the main problem that I think may relate to the salvage with autonomous vehicles is the general duty to provide assistance to people in danger. In this scenario, there are also grey areas. On the one hand, in fact, it is not clear which evolution the human work will have, until now fundamental in every sector of the maritime, ground and air transport. But, even more importantly, an autonomous ship can therefore learn from the surrounding environment and change its operating behavior by interacting with the elements, the circumstances and the places in which it will operate. This circumstance may have important re- percussions on the liability regime currently focused on the owner’s role.