An onboard display monitor shows other vehicles as a Toyota staff member drives its self-driving technology "Mobility Teammate Concept" prototype car hands-free.YUYA SHINO/Reuters
It will likely be 2017 before self-driving vehicles are tested on Ontario's highways and roads, but testing can begin as soon as next year, Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca said Tuesday.
"This is moving quicker than many people could have imagined," Mr. Del Duca said in an interview after announcing that as of Jan. 1, 2016, Ontario will become the first province in Canada to permit testing of self-driving or autonomous vehicles on public roads and highways.
Such vehicles can be tested on any roads or highways in the province, he said. The first vehicles could be passenger cars, self-driving trucks or other commercial vehicles, he noted.
The program will be open for applications beginning next month and it may take some time to make sure they meet the government's requirements, Mr. Del Duca said.
Those requirements include that any self-driving vehicles have someone in the driver's seat who can take over if the technology fails and that any entities that want to test vehicles have $5-million of insurance coverage on the vehicles. It may be until 2017 before groups wanting to test vehicles submit applications and have them approved, Mr. Del Duca said.
The move is designed to keep Ontario, the centre of auto making, parts manufacturing and a hotbed of testing for new automotive technologies in Canada, in a leading position, Ontario Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid added.
"We want to make sure we don't fall behind," Mr. Duguid told reporters at the University of Waterloo as he stood beside an autonomous golf cart designed by some of the university's students while other students piloted tiny robotic vehicles up and down a grassy slope.
The golf cart has driven on the university's ring road, but isn't permitted on public roads and would not be eligible for public roads under the program announced Tuesday.
Several U.S. states permit testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads as auto makers, technology giants and parts companies test self-driving vehicles, components for them and the electronic brains and other devices needed to control them.
The University of Michigan, for example, has created a test village where vehicles interact with each other and are put through the paces of routine and not-so-routine driving.
"Rapid is an understatement" when it comes to describing the pace of change as technology companies and auto makers work to develop not only autonomous vehicles, but vehicles that are connected to the Internet, said Ross McKenzie, managing director of WatCar, the University of Waterloo's Centre for Automotive Research.
In addition, auto makers and parts companies are working on wireless technology within vehicles, he said.
If a turning signal, for example, can be triggered by an electronic pulse instead of needing wired connections, the number of parts in a vehicle and its weight can be reduced and it becomes less complex to assemble and repair, he said.
The Ontario Transportation Ministry said there are about 100 companies and institutions active in the province in connected and autonomous-vehicle technology.
The province is making about $3-million available to to help develop new technologies.