Italy

Testing infrastructure

The decree dated February 28^th of 2018 by the Italian Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport, sets common standards to prepare the country for the next generation of autonomous vehicles, covering 15.000km of public motorways with high connectivity levels by 2030, in compliance with the timeline set by GEAR 2030.

ANAS, a private operator for motorways and primary roads in Italy is building a Smart Road infrastructure covering the following strategic itineraries:

SS51 di Alemagna – Cortina 2021;
E45/E55 – Orte – Mestre;
A90 GRA e A91 Roma-Fiumicino;
A2 – Autostrada del Mediterraneo;
A19 – Autostrada Palermo-Catania;
RA15 – Tangenziale di Catania.

Equipment of technologies enabling V2X communication and 5G connectivity is being performed on these roads.

Another Smart Road project is conducted in coherence with the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) of the Turin City. The city is equipped with several systems as Smart Traffic Lights, C-ITS, 5G, in addition to Autonomous vehicle dedicated lanes. In total, the Turin Urban Circuit is 35km long.

Procedure description

Decree 28/2/2018 of the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport states that a Ministry authorisation is required for the purposes of testing autonomous vehicles in public roads. The authorisation is valid only inside the declared area of testing. In order to be tested, vehicles must be capable of recording detailed technical data at least at 10 hertz frequency. Testing is allowed if the vehicle supervisor complies with a set of requirements, remains in the test vehicle, and is attentive to actuate in emergency cases.

A local authority (a municipality or the authority responsible for the infrastructure) requires to the Italian Ministry of Transport division 5 the certification of a new transport system. It prepares a dossier according to the EN 50126 technical standard to make a risk assessment study. The Ministry technicians prepare observations and comments to the project which must be amended accordingly. A commission of national experts (normally chaired by a high ranking official of the Ministry; a vice minister or so) examines the dossier and when satisfied issues a temporary certification to operate in dry run mode. Results of dry runs are provided and if positive the certification to open to public is issued.

This procedure, though commonly used, is not standard and may vary from case to case depending on the complexity of the system and the local authority.