Australia Inches Closer to Autonomous-Vehicle Rules

Australian officials take a major step forward in preparing for automated vehicles, drawing up plans for national law reforms over the next 12 months.

The Transport and Infrastructure Council, made up of federal, state and territory ministers, have agreed to series of reform initiatives designed to facilitate increased testing of automated vehicles.

The reforms also are intended to ensure increased confidence in the safe performance of the vehicles under Australian conditions, provide clarity over accident insurance coverage and take a responsive performance-based approach to regulating the vehicles.

Releasing a policy paper outlining the initiatives, National Transport Commission CEO Paul Retter says removing regulatory barriers will maximize the benefits of automated vehicles, including improved road safety and reduced road congestion.

“Inconsistent rules, regulations and application procedures for automated vehicles are potential obstacles to deploying this disruptive technology in the future,” Retter says in a statement. “Our goal is to identify and remove regulatory barriers and avoid a patchwork of conflicting requirements in different states and territories.”

The phased-reform program is based on the analysis of market trends so conditionally automated vehicles can operate safely and legally on Australian roads before 2020 and highly and fully automated vehicles can be in operation beginning in 2020.

Initiatives planned for coming months include developing national guidelines to support automated vehicle trials; clarifying who is in control of a vehicle with different levels of driving automation; developing a comprehensive performance-based safety assurance regime for increasingly automated vehicles; and removing regulatory barriers in Australian road rules and other transport laws that assume a human driver.

The Australian transport ministers reaffirm the existing policy position that the human driver remains in full legal control of a vehicle that is partially or conditionally automated, unless or until a new position is adopted.

Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries CEO Tony Weber says the government initiatives provide the all-important mechanisms to facilitate the progress for the roll-out of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS).

“The industry is delighted that the meeting of federal, state and territory transport and infrastructure ministers has moved so expeditiously in supporting plans for a progressive and well-structured roll-out program for C-ITS,” Weber says in a statement.

“In the long term, C-ITS promises to deliver significant benefits to the community in such areas as road-user safety, lower traffic congestion and reduced emissions.”