Self-driving cars to be tested on Portuguese roads from July

Vehicles equipped with self-driving systems will now be allowed to be tested on public roads in Portugal. After a decree-law authorising tests with autonomous vehicles on Portuguese roads was approved by the Council of Ministers at the end of April, it was published in the Official Gazette (source in Portuguese) last Monday and will enter into force next July.

According to the decree-law, autonomous driving will “enable the democratisation of mobility, promoting the inclusion of citizens who are unable to drive, due to physical or other constraints”.

At the same time, it “will make it possible to introduce new and different individual and collective mobility solutions, helping to optimise the vehicle fleet and to reduce the inefficiencies inherent in the current mobility model based on individually owned and used vehicles”, the government believes.

In practice, the decree-law creates the legal framework for public roads to be used to test autonomous driving technology, subject to a licence and compliance with a set of technical, operational and safety requirements.

The technology trials will be carried out by research laboratories, higher education institutions and companies in the automotive, infrastructure and transport sectors.

One of the main requirements of this scheme is tougher compulsory insurance. The minimum level of cover will be four times higher than is normally required and must pay for bodily injury or material damage caused to third parties by autonomous vehicles.

The organisations involved will also have to present a risk mitigation plan and show that they have adopted cybersecurity measures capable of preventing unauthorised access to vehicle systems.

The authorities must also be notified in advance that tests are to take place. Once they are completed, a test report must be submitted “which must include, among other elements, a description of any accident, serious incident or incident that occurred during the tests”.

In addition, both the driver and the operator responsible for highly automated or fully automated systems must have held a driving licence for at least six years and must not have any record of road traffic crimes or offences in the past five years.

During the tests, the speed limits set out in the Highway Code will be reduced by 20 kilometres per hour. Blood alcohol limits will be aligned with those applied to professional drivers, and neither the driver nor the operator may carry out their duties for more than three consecutive hours, and must take breaks of at least one hour.

During autonomous driving tests, the vehiclesused in the trials must be equipped with systems capable of recording detailed information, such as the characteristics of the automated system, the identification of whoever is exercising dynamic control of the car, and indicators such as speed, steering and braking performance, plus the history of interventions by the driver or operator.

The vehicles must also store information on remote commands and on communications established with other vehicles, road infrastructure and different digital connection points.

Licences issued abroad will also be valid in Portugal, provided the application is recognised. The request must be addressed to the president of the board of directors of the Institute for Mobility and Transport (IMT).