Skip to main content

Eastlink launches annual self-driving vehicle survey

The first major survey of motorists’ attitudes to self-driving vehicles is now underway in Victoria, Australia on the privately-owned Eastlink freeway, a north-south transport artery in the east of Melbourne. Self-driving vehicle technologies such as highway autopilot are increasingly offered by the latest production vehicles in Australia. Further advances will continue to occur, with hands-off-the-wheel driving on EastLink and other suitable freeways expected within the next few years, subject to legisl
September 12, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
The first major survey of motorists’ attitudes to self-driving vehicles is now underway in Victoria, Australia on the privately-owned Eastlink freeway, a north-south transport artery in the east of Melbourne.


Self-driving vehicle technologies such as highway autopilot are increasingly offered by the latest production vehicles in Australia. Further advances will continue to occur, with hands-off-the-wheel driving on EastLink and other suitable freeways expected within the next few years, subject to legislative changes.

EastLink is already involved in trials of the latest vehicles to identify opportunities to improve the compatibility between the latest self-driving vehicle technologies and freeway infrastructure.

To complement these technical trials, EastLink with support from the Australian Road Research Board, has launched the Annual Victorian Self-Driving Vehicle Survey, the first major survey of Victorian motorists’ perceptions of, and attitudes to, self-driving vehicles.

The 2017 survey will identify a baseline for motorists’ perceptions and attitudes. EastLink will then repeat the survey annually to track changes into the future.

Related Content

  • Vehicle ownership - a thing of the past?
    May 22, 2012
    Convergence of electron-powered vehicles with connected vehicle technologies could mean that only a few decades from now the idea of owning a vehicle will be entirely alien to the road user. By Technolution chief scientist Dave Marples with Jason Barnes Even when taken individually, many of the developments going on and around vehiclebased mobility will bring about major changes in transportation. Taken collectively, the transformations we might expect are nothing short of profound. Enumeration of the influ
  • The importance of going with the flow
    April 6, 2018
    Ensuring worker safety and up-to-date driver information is crucial to ensure that roadworks are not a source of danger and delay. Andrew Williams looks at a scheme on the A14 in Cambridgeshire, UK. In recent years, portable workzone ITS solutions have emerged as important tools in the management of major roadworks and system upgrade projects - and are viewed as an increasingly vital means of ensuring any ongoing traffic flow disruption is kept to a minimum. The technology forms a central component of an
  • FDOT to rebuild major segment of I-4
    September 10, 2014
    US transportation secretary Anthony Foxx has announced a Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan of US$950 million to help pay for the reconstruction and widening of 21 miles of Interstate 4 in metropolitan Orlando, Florida. This is the largest loan the Department has awarded to a public-private partnership (P3). When completed, the project will relieve congestion in one of the country's most heavily-travelled areas. Known as the I-4 Ultimate, the project is part of the 54-y
  • Russia invests in ITS technology
    May 11, 2012
    Russia’s transport systems are developing on a grand scale with ITS central to the plans, thanks in no small part to a recently relaunched ITS Russia. Jon Masters interviews the organisation’s chief executive officer Vladimir Kryuchkov Over coming years many of the biggest deployments of new technology for transport are likely to be seen in Russia. For a political and economic superpower, the world’s biggest country has only recently started to harness ITS for the good of its transport networks. But the sca