Automated vehicles offer potential long-term road safety benefits. On-road trials are necessary to ensure that automated driving systems can operate safely and efficiently in Australian conditions. However, the lack of a common approach from state and territory road transport agencies on how they will regulate and support trials of automated vehicles is creating uncertainty for industry and the risk of inconsistency between states and territories. The development of national guidelines seeks to promote Australia as a test bed for automated vehicles, while ensuring public safety. National guidelines provide a more flexible mechanism than legislation to encourage innovation and help ensure that trialling organisations face similar trial conditions across Australia. Highly or fully automated vehicles cannot legally operate on public roads due to existing legal barriers.1 Organisations seeking to run automated vehicle trials will require state road agencies to provide exemptions or permits from these legislative obligations. This could include an exemption or permit from operate outside of obligations in the Australian Road Rules or other state road transport legislation. Road transport agencies also have a responsibility to ensure road safety. Agencies will seek to impose conditions on these exemptions or permits to ensure safety, for example by limiting the roads on which the trial can be run or requiring a safety management plan to be developed. There is a risk that different road agencies will set different conditions on the exemptions or permits they provide for automated vehicle trials. Different conditions could add unnecessary cost for industry or potentially make cross-border trials impractical. In November 2016, transport and infrastructure ministers asked the NTC to develop guidelines on automated vehicle trials. If adopted and applied by state road transport agencies, the guidelines will ensure a level of consistency in trial conditions across the country, whilst maintaining flexibility. National guidelines are intended to: * provide certainty and clarity to industry regarding expectations when trialling in Australia; * help agencies manage trials in their own jurisdictions as well as across states borders; * establish minimum standards of safety; * help assure the public that roads are being used safely; * help raise awareness and acceptance of automated vehicles in the community. (Author/publisher)
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