The European Transport Council has announced the signing of a Joint Declaration of Intent to establish a series of large-scale cross-border testbeds for autonomous vehicles.
Signed by 18 Member States; the Joint Declaration was signed with the Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, Apostolos Tzitzikostas.
The signing marks a key milestone under the European Automotive Action Plan, and represents a shared ambition to accelerate the harmonised deployment of autonomous vehicles across Europe in a safe, coordinated and competitive way for Europe’s industry.
Developed to support the cross-border deployment of autonomous vehicle use cases in areas such as public transport, freight and logistics; the initiative will aim to strengthen cooperation on interoperability, regulatory approaches and practical implementation.
Participating Member States will work together on a series of common principles for approval and coordinated permitting procedures whilst committing to concrete deployment activities across Europe.
These activities will be organised around specific use cases and operational needs, and will aid in the facilitation of large-scale testing and future commercial deployment across borders.
The initiative itself aims to provide greater regulatory certainty for both innovators and investors whilst supporting the overall competitiveness of Europe’s autonomous vehicle ecosystem.
The Joint Declaration was signed by Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Polen, and Sweden.
Launched under the European Automotive Action Plan; the large-scale cross-border testbed initiative for autonomous vehicles aims to support the harmonised commercial pre-deployment of autonomous vehicles across Europe by bringing together Member States, regional and local authorities, industry stakeholders and transport operators.
The initiative will see the establishment of two parallel workstreams: one focused on the development of common principles and coordinated approaches for permitting and approval procedures; and another focused on practical deployment activities and use-case clustering, notably in public transport, freight and logistics.
