Skip to main content

TÜV Rheinland and Southwest Research Institute sign MOU

Independent research and development organisation Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and testing and inspection services provider TÜV Rheinland Mobility have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop functional standards for the performance of autonomous driving on public roadways. Following the lead of Florida, California and Nevada, which have all developed regulations enabling autonomous driving, SwRI and TÜV Rheinland Mobility will collaborate to establish standards and performance metrics that w
January 15, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Independent research and development organisation Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and testing and inspection services provider TÜV Rheinland Mobility have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop functional standards for the performance of autonomous driving on public roadways.

Following the lead of Florida, California and Nevada, which have all developed regulations enabling autonomous driving, SwRI and 2236 TÜV Rheinland Mobility will collaborate to establish standards and performance metrics that will enable the three leading and other states to evaluate and regulate the efficacy of automated driving.  

Both organisations will build on their experiences in the automotive, military, standards development and certification industries to develop standards that the automated driving industry can apply to measure its success. Nevada has required that the industry build such standards in the near future, and more states are expected to follow.

With a long history in the automotive industry, including certification for the transportation industry,  homologation, quality testing, and connected vehicle assessment and testing, the SwRI and TÜV Rheinland Mobility team looks to work with the government and industry to define the criteria that will meet the states’ requirements for testing and acceptable performance metrics for automated driving.

“Our team realises that the action of the states to begin regulating automated driving portends a national trend of the state and international actions to regulate this emerging industry,” said Suzanne Murtha, TÜV Rheinland Mobility. “We look forward to helping the industry stay ahead of this trend and, possibly, even include some of the forthcoming standards into the regulatory language.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Slow adoption of European VMS harmonisation
    January 31, 2012
    Alberto Arbaiza, ES4-Mare Nostrum Chair, Directorate General of Traffic, Spain and Antonio Lucas-Alba, ES4 Secretariat, INTRAS, University of Valencia, Spain write about progress towards variable message sign harmonisation in Europe . Particularly in Europe, national road administrations have been faster at generating and adopting new road signs than the standardisation process has been at generating them.
  • Road safety - the challenge ahead
    April 25, 2012
    More than 1.3 million people die in road accidents each year. If nothing is done, this already chilling figure risks to rise to 1.9 million deaths per year. Around 90 per cent of road fatalities occur in emerging and developing countries. Here, the mixture of population growth and higher numbers of vehicles due to rising incomes are proving a deadly combination, as infrastructure and regulatory environment have difficulty keeping pace.
  • Atlanta ponders Mobility as a Service for seamless transit
    June 29, 2018
    Drivers in Atlanta spent 70 hours in peak-time traffic jams last year. As the MaaS Market conference moves to the US’s fourth most congested city, we ask how Mobility as a Service can help. Colin Sowman winds down his window to listen. It is not by accident that ITS International’s first MaaS Market conference outside London is being hosted in Atlanta. The event is being supported by Georgia State Road & Tollway Authority and the City of Atlanta – and again not without a reason as metro Atlanta is looking
  • Monotch & Detecon to help 5G transport roll-out in EU
    March 4, 2024
    5GMEC4EU project aims to boost 5G take-up along major European transportation routes