Austria, Hungary, Slovenia set up middle Europe driverless region

The transport ministers of Austria, Hungary and Slovenia have signed an agreement to cooperate on the development of autonomous vehicles and e-mobility. The agreement advocates creating an Austrian-Hungarian-Slovenian driverless region to help develop and understand the latest mobility technologies and vehicles, according to a report in the Austrian newspaper Oberösterreichische Nachrichten. A test-track for autonomous vehicles stretching from Graz, Austria, to Zalaegerszeg in Hungary, via Maribor, Sl
April 3, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
The transport ministers of Austria, Hungary and Slovenia have signed an agreement to cooperate on the development of autonomous vehicles and e-mobility.


The agreement advocates creating an Austrian-Hungarian-Slovenian driverless region to help develop and understand the latest mobility technologies and vehicles, according to a report in the Austrian newspaper Oberösterreichische Nachrichten.

A test-track for autonomous vehicles stretching from Graz, Austria, to Zalaegerszeg in Hungary, via Maribor, Slovenia, may be constructed, the report noted.

The signing ceremony was also attended by European Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc, the Slovenian member of the EU Commission.

Driverless cars and their impact on road design is being studied by the Vienna-based 2682 Austrian Institute of Technology through its interdisciplinary via-AUTONOM programme. Under scrutiny are new forms and technologies of road infrastructure that would facilitate safe and efficient automated road transport. It is studying how road infrastructure can optimise automated driving functions such as lane planning, proactive driving behaviour, pre-crash support and an “enhanced electronic horizon”.

In the world of big data, the institute if looking at which infrastructure and vehicle data are relevant to support autonomous driving, and how can they be combined. The project aims to investigate road infrastructure measures that have the highest effectiveness for the transition period with automated vehicles and non-automated road users.

Another objective is to identify where those measures must be implemented. To this end, via-AUTONOM develops a risk model to identify critical spots and road sections - intersections, roadwork zones and curves with limited sight distance – that may hold back increased use of automated vehicles.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Current technologies could eliminate 90 per cent of traffic accidents
    April 27, 2012
    Nearly every traffic accident caused by driver error – up to 90 per cent of all crashes – could be eliminated if existing intelligent transportation technologies were implemented in vehicles and on roads, say experts at IEEE, the world's largest technical professional association. These include electronics and computing technologies such as in-vehicle machine vision and sensors to detect drowsy drivers, lane departure warning systems, and vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications for s
    Read More
  • Developing a road safety decision support system for policymakers
    April 22, 2016
    Limited public budgets means that policymakers today, more than ever, need to able to make decisions that are cost-effective and can bring about the highest return in terms of road safety gains Policymakers put great emphasis on making informed decisions to ensure that the policies decided upon are backed up by relevant studies and research. While there are hundreds or even thousands of relevant studies in the field of road safety, these are dispersed across different countries without any interconnection b
    Read More
  • TRA 2014 showcases the best of cutting-edge transport research and thinking
    July 1, 2014
    Despite tight finances due to the current global economic climate, the recent Transport Research Arena (TRA) 2014 show in Paris showed how innovative transport research, largely using cutting-edge ITS, is creating safer and smarter highways of the future. Guy Woodford reports How far can you drive around a car race track with no other vehicles on it on half a glass of fuel while attempting to maintain a speed of 60kph? After taking up the challenge offered by the Eco Driving Simulator using SiVIC (Simulatio
    Read More
  • Reading the road ahead with markings & signs for safety
    January 16, 2020
    Traffic signs and pavement markings have been in use for over 100 years to provide essential guidance and delineation of the travel path. In the ensuing years, the performance of these systems has been greatly expanded with the introduction of retroreflective optics to increase visibility at night and in wet night-time conditions.
    Read More

Highlighted Content