In a recent announcement, the government of the Netherlands expressed its intention to remove legal barriers that prevent the circulation of driverless trucks as of 2015
São Paulo – Soon, driverless trucks may become commonplace on Dutch roads. In a recent announcement, the country's government announced its intention to release this type of vehicle within five years.
According to the plan, next year the legal restrictions for this type of situation should start to fall. The initiative will be led by Melanie Schultz van Haegen, Minister of Infrastructure of the Netherlands.
"Autonomous cars will make a positive contribution to traffic flow and safety on our busy road network," she said in a statement posted on the official website.
The choice of trucks to inaugurate the novelty is not free. Because they run on roads, they cover areas with fewer obstacles and more predictable traffic – which justifies the choice. All this without mentioning the exhausting journey to which truck drivers are subjected.
Release
However, the release of driverless trucks will not happen all at once. Before that, computer simulations and tests on closed roads will be carried out.
The idea is to assess whether the novelty will really work. If it works in practice, the new technology will be used to supply the port of Rotterdam, one of the largest in Europe.
"Over the next 20 years, advances in this field will transform the driver-vehicle relationship more than anything else has in the past 100 years," said Schultz.
The Netherlands is the first country to announce such a measure – but initiatives involving autonomous vehicles are already being tested in Japan and the US. Among them, the most famous is the Google car.
By Saulo Pereira Guimaraes
Source: Exam
