Global regulations are constantly evolving to better support the deployment of autonomous vehicles
In the United States, it is the turn of the State of Oklahoma to ratify, with the support of the American Senate, a bill authorizing the circulation of autonomous vehicles on open roads. Since April 29, the state of Oklahoma has become the 30th state in the United States to legislate in favor of autonomous vehicles. At the federal level, a major step forward was also made with the adoption in March 2022 of regulations removing the obligation for manufacturers of automated vehicles to equip autonomous vehicles with manual driving (steering wheel/pedals). These regulations will come into force in September 2022 once they are officially published in the federal register.
Earlier this year, the UN also marked a milestone by amending the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic to allow driverless vehicles. Adopted on January 14, this amendment will come into force on July 14. Once published in the Official Journal (by September 1, 2022 at the latest), the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles that do not require the supervision of a driver will thus become possible.
It is in this context that Europe has validated a bill aimed at certifying level 4 autonomous vehicles, the publication of which is scheduled for the second half of 2022. This major step is a continuation of the first milestones already insiders, like the German and French legislators who in 2021 provided the world’s first legal frameworks for autonomous driving in regular service.
These regulatory changes are the logical continuation of the national strategies of many countries, which wish to anticipate the more massive arrival of autonomous vehicles, unanimously considered as the next major advance in the mobility market.
This global trend aimed at changing regulations in favor of autonomous mobility will facilitate its large-scale deployment, offering Navya an acceleration of its commercial opportunities within a clarified and standardized legal framework.
Navya actively contributes to the development of international legislation, in particular through its collaboration within the working groups of the European Commission, France and AVIA in the United States (Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association).
The year 2022 therefore marks a promising step for Navya from a regulatory point of view with the publication of numerous legislative texts allowing the certification of autonomous vehicles. Until then, in the absence of suitable texts, Navya was indeed forced to formulate requests for systematic exemptions from each ministry of each country in order to obtain authorization to circulate its shuttles on public roads.
