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

  • January 4, 2023
    Weigh in Motion gets smarter
    Weigh in Motion technology is at the forefront of protecting road surfaces and helping enforcement activity – but could it also play a key role in the development of Smart Cities?
  • March 1, 2013
    Integrating ferry transport into smart ticketing
    Transport authorities are increasingly looking to integrate ferry travel into the mix of public transport. David Crawford finds out more. The new A$370m (US$398m) Opal public transport smartcard system being installed by the Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS)-led Pearl consortium in Sydney is geographically the largest in the world to date. The consortium includes the Commonwealth Bank of Australia; Australian retail payment system provider ePay; Australian infrastructure engineering company Downer Group; a
  • February 2, 2012
    ANPR developments in the Spanish market
    Gonzalo García Palacios, R&D engineer with Quality Information Systems, writes about ANPR developments in the Spanish market In an increasing number of countries, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) systems are a growing market. They have become a fundamental part of many ITS systems, whether publicly or privately owned, and essential to any user which looks seriously to give the best services to its customers or wants to improve its facilities' performance.
  • July 30, 2012
    Monitoring and transparency preserve enforcement's reputation
    What can be done to preserve automated enforcement's reputation in the face of media and public criticism? Here, system manufacturers and suppliers talk about what they think are the most appropriate business models. Recent events in Italy only served to once again to push automated enforcement into the media spotlight. At the heart of the matter were the numerous alleged instances of local authorities and their contract suppliers of enforcement services colluding to illegally shorten amber signal phase tim