Final Report: Testing of automated and connected vehicles (AV/CV)

Introduction and Summary

Under the Canadian Free Trade Agreement’s (CFTA) Regulatory Reconciliation and Cooperation Table (RCT), parties identified the testing of automated and connected vehicles (AV/CV) as an item for future regulatory cooperation. When added to the RCT’s work plan in 2019-2020, it was envisioned that this work could potentially see all jurisdictions adopt one set of guidelines for the testing of these vehicles and align formalized permitting practices for testing. The Working Group assigned for this work plan item was the AV/CV Coordinating Council, which had led (and continues to lead) inter-jurisdictional cooperation in this area.

Based on the collaboration on testing that has been advanced by the AV/CV Coordinating Council since 2019, namely Transport Canada’s publishing of the Guidelines for Testing Automated Driving Systems in Canada Version 2.0 in August 2021 and the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administration’s publication of Canadian Jurisdictional Guidelines for the Safe Testing and Deployment of Vehicles Equipped with Automated Driving Systems Version 2.0 in February 2022, the regulatory cooperation work on AV/CVs under the RCT’s purview has been deemed complete. Ongoing and future efforts in this realm will continue to be led under the AV/CV Coordinating Council and other federal-provincial-territorial (FPT) organizations works on AV/CVs.