Pilot projects for testing totally driverless cars on Belgium’s roads will be authorized from the 1st of May, but the Federal Minister of Mobility will have to give the go-ahead to the respective car manufacturers and technology companies. It will thus be possible to see a car circulating without a driver, monitored from a distance by an operator, on a public road.

In 2016, the Cabinet of Ministers had adopted a good-practices code regulating experiments with self-driving vehicleson Belgian roads. However, such vehicles still needed to have a driver or operator on board.

A royal decree published in April in Belgium’s royal gazette, Le Moniteur, now allows completely driverless vehicles to be tested on public roads for a limited duration, following authorization by the Minister of Mobility and the managers of the country’s roads.

Belgium is one of the rare European countries to authorize such tests on its public roads.

Christopher Bennett

The Brussels Times