Minister Ťok discussed autonomous vehicles, traffic safety and construction measures during his visi

The minister talked with the US Congress Transportation Committee representatives about PPP projects, i.e. cooperation between the public and private sector in the field of transportation. The congressmen introduced in detail how PPPs are established in the USA for motorway construction but also in the use of autonomous vehicles. The Ministry of Transport wants to use PPP to build the D4 motorway between Příbram and Písek.

"We talked about cooperation particularly in three areas: safety, transport infrastructure construction and development of autonomous vehicles. As the Czech Republic is planning to build a test ring for autonomous vehicles, the exchange of experience and possible participation of the American side is highly interesting for us", said Dan Ťok, the minister of transport, after the meeting.

The actual testing of autonomous vehicles is possible already today. The construction of a test polygon for autonomous vehicles will make it possible to guarantee the required system level with regards to international connectivity and integration, service quality and technical parameters. Another benefit of compliance verification and certification is that the market will open to more suppliers of autonomous vehicles or their components. The test operation of the vehicles for the development of new vehicles and technologies is governed by the act on the road terms and conditions for vehicles. The standards enabling testing in real road traffic are still far from complete.

The minister also discussed with his US colleagues the reduction of energy consumption in the field of transportation, which shall reduce the dependency of NATO member states on energy sources. In this respect, the Czech Republic has been supporting the registration of vehicles with an alternative drive. The National Clean Mobility Plan foresees the construction of a backbone network of about 500 fast-charging stations and another 800 or so standard recharging points.

Minister Ťok also used the opportunity of his visit to the USA and attended a conference on the safety of cosmic technologies and visited the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago that is among the top institutes for e-mobility and the "smart cities" concept. He also met the representatives of the US automotive industry and the top management of Honeywell, a company that has its research and development centre in Brno, a production plant in Olomouc and that cooperates with Aero Vodochody, a plane maker.

You can watch the video of the meeting here.