Skip to main content

Australia launches self-driving vehicle pilot

The Victorian Government in Australia has partnered with Bosch, the Transport Accident Commission and VicRoads to build the first vehicle developed in Australia with self-driving capabilities. The US$900,000 (AU$1.2 million) investment has helped Bosch develop the self-driving vehicle, which has been designed to navigate roads with or without driver input and includes technology such as inbuilt sensors and cameras to detect and avoid hazards such as pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles. Trials of
October 6, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The Victorian Government in Australia has partnered with Bosch, the Transport Accident Commission and 4728 VicRoads to build the first vehicle developed in Australia with self-driving capabilities.

The US$900,000 (AU$1.2 million) investment has helped Bosch develop the self-driving vehicle, which has been designed to navigate roads with or without driver input and includes technology such as inbuilt sensors and cameras to detect and avoid hazards such as pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles.

Trials of the vehicle will be used to inform the development of regulations and infrastructure to enable similar self-driving cars to operate on Victorian roads when they become commercially available in the future.

The trial will also help VicRoads better understand how motorists use self-driving vehicles and the changes needed to prepare for the future.

Traffic management experts and urban planners will get a better understanding of the need to reconfigure road networks and traffic signals to optimise safety and the flow of vehicles across the network.

The government believe self-driving vehicles are an important step to reducing road trauma with 90 per cent of crashes resulting from human error. It says the introduction of highly-automated vehicles has the potential to help Victoria achieve its Towards Zero vision – a future free of deaths and serious injuries on the state’s roads.

Related Content

  • May 30, 2014
    The Asia-Pacific poses a multitude of ITS challenges
    The Asia-Pacific ITS Forum and Exhibition in Auckland, New Zealand, provided a focus for the region’s ITS Associations. Mary Bell reports. In late April, ITS New Zealand hosted the 13th Asia-Pacific ITS Forum and Exhibition in Auckland. Around 350 delegates from 24 nations gathered to share and advance ITS applications on both strategic and technical levels and to discuss the differing and various challenges faced in the region.
  • October 10, 2017
    Finalists shortlisted for ITS Australia National Awards 2017
    The finalists have been shortlisted for the ITS Australia National Awards 2017. The winners will be announced at The Pavilion, Arts Centre Melbourne on 23 November 2017. This year’s event has a record number of nominations and nearly twice as many submissions considered by the judging panel across all categories, compared to last year. For the Industry award, the finalists and their projects include Aldridge Traffic Controllers – ATSC4 Traffic Signal Controller with VC6.1 and HRS Software, CEOS
  • July 17, 2012
    Development of cooperative driving applications for work zones
    The German AKTIV project is researching several cooperative driving applications for use in work zones. PTV's Michael Ortgiese details progress. The steep increases in traffic volumes predicted back in the early 1990s have unfortunately been proven to be more than accurate. In Germany, the AKTIV project continues to look into cooperative technologies' potential to reduce the impact of those increased traffic volumes and keep traffic moving despite limitations in infrastructure capacity.
  • November 21, 2024
    Acusensus cameras find more than 800 drivers using phones in five-week trial
    There were also 2,300 incidents of not wearing a seat belt