Autonomous vehicles: The government supports 16 new experiments in the territories

Elisabeth Borne, Minister responsible for Transport, announced on April 24 the winners of the call for projects Experimentation of the Autonomous Road Vehicle (EVRA), carried out within the framework of the Investment Program for the Future. Two consortia have been selected by the State, representing 16 experiments for a total aid amount of around 42 million euros.

Experimentation is at the heart of the national strategy for the development of autonomous vehicles presented by the Government in May 2018. It must allow both to develop the uses and knowledge of these systems by citizens and stakeholders in the territories, and to build the future regulatory framework, particularly in terms of security validation.

As part of the Investment for the Future Program, @Elisabeth_Borne present this morning the winners of the call for projects "Experimentation of #Vehicle Autonomous Road (EVRA) »➕ info: https://t.co/OADwVXqKIy pic.twitter.com/R6Vbb0iHvP- Ministry of Ecology ???? (@Min_Ecologie) April 24th

To increase the number of experiments, the Government launched in June 2018 a call for proposals for the Experimentation of the Autonomous Road Vehicle (EVRA) for large-scale experiments. This call for projects thus aims to support projects to test the use of autonomous vehicles in the field of individual, shared or collective mobility, freight and logistics.

They will notably allow the development of autonomous shuttle services in rural and peri-urban areas, in order to provide alternatives to the private car or to improve commuting.

"In our fight for mobility to be accessible to all our citizens, wherever they live, autonomous vehicles are one of the answers to provide travel solutions for everyone and everywhere, especially in rural areas". Elisabeth Borne

The two winning consortia selected are: the Safety and Acceptability of Driving and Autonomous Mobility (SAM) project, led by the Automobile Platform (PFA); and the Autonomous Shuttle Experiments project (ENA), led by the French Institute of Sciences and Technologies for Transport, Planning and Networks (IFSTTAR).

The 16 projects, financially supported by the State and which will take place in different points of the territory, will allow France to take a new step with larger scale experiments: it is the milestone of a million kilometers traveled in experimentation which will be achieved by 2022, in a wide variety of use cases.

The objective was to select a limited number of projects, of sufficient critical size, with the best governance between the partners. All of these projects represent an amount of 120 million euros in experiments, to which are added the contributions of the local communities and the territories concerned, in particular for the qualification of the infrastructure.

More information on the experimentation of autonomous vehicles on the ministry website.