Conflicting Swiss Agendas: Testing Autonomous Vehicles at Zürich

Why the canton does not approve testing on public roads

© Swisscom AG 2015May 2018 / updated January 2021. Switzerland is known for advanced R&D of robotics and autonomous driving or flying, but it is lacking major aviation or car manufacturers which could take it up for manufacturing. The ongoing turn to autonomous mobility is opening up a window of opportunity for the country’s automotive suppliers, software boutiques, and niche vehicle developers who need infrastructures to integrate and test their products. In different Swiss cantons this is already possible, but scarcely at Zürich. Despite a remarkable concentration of stakeholders for developing self-driving vehicles beyond universities (e.g. Google, Swisscom), the canton’s policymakers continue to be reluctant to implement supportive frameworks for public road testing.

Read what Carmen Walker-Späh, Canton Zürich’s Minister for Economy and Transportation told B2Bioworld in an interview about efforts to re-industrialise Switzerland and cantonal policy for experimenting highly automated vehicles in May 2018, and compare it to results in 2020 and beginning 2021. Can Zürich benefit from research on autonomous driving or flying?Reading time: 13 min

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