Czech Republic

Testing Infrastructure

Autonomous vehicles up to SAE level 3 are being tested in the Czech Republic. The very first autonomous car (with a human driver able to take over control in case of a need) was under operation on the motorway between Prague and Liberec in 2015. At the present, an opportunity for the testing of autonomous vehicles of SAE level 4 and higher on highways and in cities is being verified.

It has been created a free of charge Catalogue of autonomous vehicles testing areas in the Czech Republic public roads, which benefits the autonomous vehicles industry by providing detailed information about the transport infrastructure. This catalogue includes two testing areas, each one with more than 500 km length, obtaining more than 2000 km of road testing in both directions. It incorporates tools to filter the different road sections to extract the ones that fulfils the personalized selection of parameters.

C-ITS systems (hybrid communication based on ITS G5 and cellular technologies, the first step LTE (4G), the next step LTE-V and/or LTE-B) are being deployed on selected motorway sections within the project “C-ROADS Czech Republic” (CEF Transport Mechanism funding), establishing the basis for connected and automated vehicles. The “C-ROADS Czech Republic” project is also focused on urban infrastructure in the city of Brno and on prospective cross-border testing.

Procedure Description

A subject (car producer or technical service conducting approval tests) applying for permission to conduct a field testing must (among others):

possess a homologation certificate (or confirmation that a subject has applied for homologation);
undertake research and development of components, systems or independent technical units and subsequently produce vehicles, parts of systems or independent technical units in large scale;
have a quality control system and fulfil standards of it

After obtaining permission and a special vehicle registration, a subject must:

operate vehicles only for the purpose of field testing;
secure that a road safety, environment or health and life of humans will not be threatened;
use registration plates with special vehicle registration number;
maintain a record/book of each conducted field test;
use only vehicles with special vehicle registration and have related documents in the vehicle;
have liability insurance during the whole period of field testing;
report any changes of conditions on which a permission was issued to the Ministry of Transport