National standards for AV testing in China that were announced in April are now being rolled out, China Daily reports. Thirty four different traffic situations are covered, but testing under compromised weather and road conditions is not.
Up until now, AV testing in China has been hampered by differing regulations between regions. Although the new guidelines do not cover everything, they should remove some of the hassle of testing AVs in China.
John Frazer, chief communication officer at the Decentralised Autonomous Vehicles Foundation, a software platform for connected vehicles, commented, “The moves in China are a welcome and overdue effort by a central government to harmonize an autonomous vehicle ecosystem.
“As we have also seen in other parts of the world, trials and proof-of -concepts have been highly regionalized. As a result, these have frequently lacked the level of interoperability needed to make autonomous ground and air-based vehicles viable.
By Illya Verpraet