Skip to main content

France gives the go ahead for autonomous vehicle testing

The French government has given the go ahead for autonomous vehicle testing on public roads as part of its ‘New Industrial France’ plan to rejuvenate industry in the country. It sees autonomous vehicles as the future of the automotive industry, saying they are an indispensable step towards making mobility, regulation and security of traffic and transport more efficient and more environmentally friendly. The government also views autonomous cars as a way to improve road safety, saying that the cars sh
August 8, 2016 Read time: 1 min
The French government has given the go ahead for autonomous vehicle testing on public roads as part of its ‘New Industrial France’ plan to rejuvenate industry in the country.

It sees autonomous vehicles as the future of the automotive industry, saying they are an indispensable step towards making mobility, regulation and security of traffic and transport more efficient and more environmentally friendly.

The government also views autonomous cars as a way to improve road safety, saying that the cars should have a better reaction capacity than humans who may be tired intoxicated or distracted.

French automotive manufacturer PSA Group, which controls Peugeot and Citroen, has already participated in a 300km autonomous driving demonstration from Paris to Amsterdam during event set up by the Netherlands for European Union transport ministers.

Related Content

  • Harmonisation of Europe's ITS deployment still unbalanced
    January 31, 2012
    Dean Herenda, Chairman of the EasyWay project, talks about the progress made and the progress still to be made in harmonising ITS deployment across the European Union. "The deployment and use of ITS in road transport across Europe was and still is unbalanced" Although Europe can be proud of being home to some of the world's most advanced ITS solutions, the relative disparities between Member States of the European Union (EU) in terms of the extent and technological sophistication of deployments actually sta
  • Building Europe’s roads for driverless age
    June 17, 2022
    Creating smart, co-operative road transport systems that harness the white heat of technology won’t be easy but a new document shows the way – Andrew Stone does some reading…
  • Securing V2X communications
    June 6, 2016
    Cybersecurity developments are moving fast in the automotive sector, but they’re a significant hurdle for the roll-out of C-ITS applications. Jon Masters reports. In the wake of the high-profile hacking of the Jeep Cherokee and problems like the flaw in the Nissan Leaf’s companion app that could compromise the security of data about recent journeys, initiatives linked to vehicle cybersecurity seem to be moving rapidly.
  • Autonomous vehicles: threat or opportunity for urban mobility?
    January 17, 2017
    According to a new position paper from the International Association Of Public Transport (UITP), autonomous vehicles (AVs) will lead to a dystopian future of even more private car traffic on the road unless they are put to use in shared fleets and integrated with traditional public transport services. The paper, ‘Autonomous vehicles: a potential game changer for urban mobility,’ indicates that, despite the risk of increased congestion due to car travel becoming even more comfort