Belgium

Testing infrastructure

Information is not available.

Procedure description

Steps to be followed:

• Discussion with organizations in charge
• Complete application form, including documents
• Agreement on communication towards other road users
• After approval: inform police
• Allow authorities (administrations and police) to assist testing
• Test report after testing to discuss with authorities

Documentation needed:

• Auditing record kept by the organiser of the test which shows that the internal tests have given sufficient results to be able to conduct tests on the public road network without this creating additional risks for road users
• Copy of the appropriate driving licence for every test driver
• Copy of an appropriate insurance policy for the test vehicle (after registration if not available during the application)
• Risk analysis
• Training plan for test drivers
• Copy of the roadworthiness test certificate (where appropriate)
• A photo of the automated vehicle

Organisation(s) in charge

1. Federal Public Service Mobility and Transport – DG Road Transport and Road Safety
2. Flemish Ministry of Mobility and Public Works
3. Brussels Regional Public Service Mobility
4. Walloon Regional Public Service – DGO 1 Roads and Buildings

Remark: the organizations involved depend on the region where testing will take place. In principle, 1/ will always be involved, whereas 2/, 3/ and 4/ will be involved if testing will take place in their region. Of course, a test may include two or three regions.

Contact information

1. SPF Mobilité et Transports
2. Vlaanderen
3. Be Brussels
4. Service Public de Wallonie (SPW)

Link to procedure website

The basic information for testing organizations can be found on 1/’s website in Dutch or in French.

The application form is not available online: the testing organization is supposed to contact one of the administrations and at least one meeting will take place with all the administrations involved. This will be the occasion to explain the procedure and to avoid any misunderstanding by completing an online form.

Link to documents

Code of Practice autonomous vehicles

• English
• Dutch
• French
• German

Further comments

In 2016, the Belgian Minister of Transport presented a Code of Practice for testing automated vehicles in a real world environment in Belgium. This Code of Practice is based upon ‘The Pathway to driverless Cars: A Code of Practice for testing’ drafted by the UK Department for Transport in 2015. The Belgian Code of Practice has been drafted in cooperation with a working party consisting of different Belgian stakeholders. The stakeholders included the regional authorities of Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels; the sector federations Agoria and Febiac and the Belgian Road Safety Institute. The Code of Practice can be found on the website of the Federal Public Service Mobility and Transport.

The Belgian approach of testing automated vehicles is a pragmatic one. The procedure is not at all ‘automated’: it does not depend upon an online form that could be automatically treated. Instead, the approval will result out of discussion between the testing organization and the authorities, possibly even illustrated with tests on private roads assisted by the authorities. Another element of the pragmatic approach includes the Code of Practice being open to evolution (and exemptions). At the current moment, the Code of practice is being updated following a change in the Belgian highway code. This change allows, on the condition that the federal Minister of Transport gives his consent, to test an automated vehicle on Belgian public roads with an operator supervising the tests from a control room. Before, an operator had to present in the vehicle.

See also:

David Schoenmaekers, ‘The Belgian framework for testing of automated vehicles’, paper presented at the 11th ITS European Congress, Glasgow, Scotland, 6-9 June 2016.