Announcement Date
February 2022
Link to announcement
Problem being addressed
Automated vehicles have the capacity to provide significant road safety and efficiency benefits to Australian society. However, Australia’s laws are designed for human drivers and do not currently support the deployment of automated vehicles. Without new safety regulation, automated vehicles may introduce new in-service safety risks that will not be mitigated by the market.
Proposal
In June 2020, the National Transport Commission (NTC) drafted a decision Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) on the in-service safety framework for automated vehicles, which resulted in decisions made by infrastructure and transport ministers on the key elements of the framework including the establishment of a new national law (the Automated Vehicle Safety Law (AVSL)) and regulator. The AVSL will regulate Automated Diving System Entities (ADSEs) who have a responsibility to ensure the safe operation of their automated driving systems for their entire lifecycle.
Further consultation on the detailed content of the law and differences in potential legislative implementation approaches resulted in in a range of proposals noted by infrastructure and transport ministers in May 2021. A subsequent round of targeted consultation focused on how the AVSL framework would interact with existing state, territory and Commonwealth transport laws and new frameworks for automated vehicles previously agreed by ministers. The RIS was updated with respect to the recommendations arising out of this consultation.
Ministers agreed in February 2022 to a Commonwealth law approach to the AVSL, recommended as option 3 by the NTC in the RIS. This option has the highest net benefits of the four options originally considered.
Assessment:
Compliant RIS.