Taiwan was ranked 13th on this year’s Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index, which is published by KPMG.
Taiwan was included for the first time in the index, now in its third edition, and was one of the five entrants that obtained a top rating for government-funded autonomous-vehicle pilot programs, according to KPMG’s Web site.
KPMG complies the index by assessing 30 countries and jurisdictions in the areas of policy and legislation, technology and innovation, infrastructure, and consumer acceptance.
Steven Chen (陳文正), head of renewable, infrastructure, government and healthcare at KPMG Taiwan, said that while Taiwan lags behind some Western countries in terms of legislation and infrastructure, it was the highlight of this year’s index, because it ranked ahead of Germany, Australia and France.
Taiwan started regular road tests of self-driving vehicles on Taipei bus lanes in May, an amazing development that stunned KPMG International, Chen said.
KPMG’s Web site said that in December 2018, the Legislative Yuan passed the Unmanned Vehicles Technology Innovative Experimentation Act (無人載具科技創新實驗條例), which established a framework for testing road vehicles, drones, autonomous boats and other autonomous vehicles.
The act includes regulations for licensing vehicles, informing the public and making safety assessments, KPMG said.
The act was followed in February last year by the opening of Taiwan CAR Lab in Tainan for autonomous vehicle road tests, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and infrastructure design, KPMG said.
The 1.75 hectare facility focuses on situations likely to arise on Taiwan’s mixed-use, low-speed urban roads, it said.
There were 13.8 million motorcycles on Taiwan’s roads in 2018, twice the number of cars, in a country of 23 million people, it added.
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