## 3 State of Art: An Overview on Safety for AVs (Risks, Drawbacks, and Benefits)  
The current scientific literature on safety for AVs covers diverse technical aspects, spanning from the electronic and software progress to the interaction with other vehicles and surrounding infrastructure. The range of AV-related risks is quite broad, considering the heterogeneity of the transportation industry and how it can affect people lives in many different ways: from political decisions and governments to technology investments, from safety-related costs to user behavioral models, and from the effects on financial markets to the environmental impact, to mention a few. Through efficient risk management actions, risk reduction and mitigation should be attained in order to improve the AV technology and make it widespread to the public, primarily accepted by mass and everyday use. Even if not strictly related to AVs' mechanical design and dynamics, a risk recently coming under the spotlight is that of health, with a particular reference to COVID-19 and by extension to other sanitary hazards. AV sharing can potentially constitute a carrier of diseases; therefore, proper measures must be identified and implemented to reduce this risk. In the case of Coronavirus, for shared and public vehicles which are used by different users, the infection can be spread mainly by contact with infected surfaces and through airborne droplets. Hence, adequate sanitation systems should be developed and implemented to allow safe sharing conditions, and to increase the sense of trust and safety perception towards shared vehicles; in fact, users might be less enticed to use shared vehicles for fear of diseases. On the other side, it is interesting to note that since AVs can be operated automatically to transport goods and carry out deliveries without the need to employ human drivers (i.e., drones) [11], the risk of transmitting diseases gets potentially reduced, as the interaction between consignees and the driver is basically absent (should they be appropriately designed to minimize contact between the various consignees); AVs are therefore useful also for delivering sanitary goods such as vaccines or bio-hazard materials during pandemics [12]. Moreover, implementing strategies and devices to monitor passengers' health status on shared AVs can help with controlling and monitoring the spread of diseases over a specific area. In this sense, there is potential for new related ideas for further research studies in the upcoming years. Figure 3 shows the Hercules logistic Autonomous Vehicle used during the COVID-19 pandemic to deliver food and medical supplies. Figure 2: Evolution and expectations about automotive companies AVs market [10]. In terms of governance, governments and agencies can adopt various strategies to manage AVs related risks depending on their visions and desired outcomes. In this type of approach, risks mainly refer to road accidents and their consequences, typically having significant impacts on people's life quality (principally physical injuries and deaths) and costs impacting national health systems and transport infrastructure. The way governments decide to intervene to manage traffic and, specifically, to regulate AV will affect how transportation systems respond in terms of safety. Examples of strategies typically vary from a no-response approach to implementing control interventions [13,14]. The adoption and spread of AVs impact the surrounding environment and territory, both urbanized and countryside, by affecting transport dynamics and user behaviors [15] such as commuting or logistics. All of these aspects reflect the way transport infrastructure is thought and built [16]. In addition, the application of AVs to public transport systems could further incentivize their use rather than smaller vehicles with lower capacity (i.e., cars) [17].