NHTSA, the U.S. Government’s Department of Transportation agency tasked with writing, promulgating, and enforcing vehicle safety standards, is launching the Automated Vehicles Transparency and Engagement for Safe Testing Initiative with states, local governments, and companies in the automated driving system community. Test automated vehicles can now voluntarily submit information to NHTSA as part of this AV TEST Initiative, and information will be made available to all. Then, any member can learn about the types of activities happening, including testing of various types of motor vehicles—cars, low-speed shuttles, trucks, and driverless electric delivery vehicles.
The participating companies so far are Beep, Cruise, FCA, Navya, Nuro, Toyota, Uber, and Waymo. The states include California, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Utah.
The AV TEST Initiative will include a series of public events across the country to improve transparency and safety in the development and testing of automated driving systems, and to help increase the public’s awareness of testing.
It is part of an overall DOT strategy to increase public acceptance of future automated transportation systems.
