Governor McAuliffe Announces New Partnership to Make Virginia a Leader in Automated-Vehicle Industry

Press Release

Today Governor Terry McAuliffe announced a new effort to make Virginia a leader in researching and developing automated-vehicle technology. The Virginia Department of Transportation and the Department of Motor Vehicles have entered into a new partnership with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, Transurban and HERE--Nokia's mapping business--to create the Virginia Automated Corridors. The new initiative will streamline the use of Virginia roads and state-of-the-art test facilities for automated-vehicle testing, certification, and migration towards deployment.

"Automatic-vehicles are the future, and our Commonwealth's long history in military and private automated and unmanned systems has poised Virginia to lead the way," said Governor McAuliffe. "As we work to build a new Virginia economy, we have a tremendous opportunity to provide car companies and suppliers of automated vehicles the ideal, real-world environments they need to test complex scenarios prior to putting their vehicles on more roadways."

The Virginia Automated Corridors will offer automated-vehicle developers the opportunity to test their technologies on Virginia roads covering more than 70 miles of interstates and arterials in the Northern Virginia region, including Interstates 66, 495, and 95, as well as state routes 29 and 50. The corridors also include two test-track environments--the Virginia Smart Road, located on-site at the transportation institute, and the Virginia International Raceway.

"The Virginia Automated Corridors partnership demonstrates Virginia's strong commitment to innovative technologies and our desire to collaborate with developers and suppliers as they create, test, and deploy new systems that will ease congestion and create jobs," said Karen Jackson, Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth.

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