Self-driving vehicle to help boost road safety in Victoria

An Australian-developed self-driving vehicle has been built in a partnership between the Victorian Government, Bosch, the Transport Accident Commission and VicRoads.

A $1.2 million investment has assisted Bosch in developing the vehicle, which has been designed to navigate roads with or without driver input. It also includes technology to detect and avoid hazards such as pedestrians, cyclists and other vehicles.

90% of crashes result from human error. Self-driving vehicles could help to reduce the rate of road trauma and assist Victoria in achieving its Towards Zero vision, which outlines a future without deaths and serious injuries on the roads.

Minister for Roads and Road Safety Luke Donnellan inspected the new vehicle and met with the Bosch engineers who have been working for 12 months developing the car.

“By removing human error from the equation, self-driving vehicles will play a critical role in reducing deaths and serious injuries on Victorian roads,” said Donnellan.

Trials of the vehicle will be used to inform the development of regulations and infrastructure for similar self-driving cars when they become commercially available in the future.

The trial will also help VicRoads better understand how motorists use self-driving vehicles and the changes needed to prepare for the future, while traffic management experts and urban planners will get a better understanding of how to reconfigure road networks and traffic signals for safety and vehicle flow.

When Melbourne hosts the 23rd World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, the self-driving vehicle will be a centrepiece at the event.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Vege