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Congress Considers Roads for Autonomous Vehicles

By Ms. Michelle Birdsall posted 05-13-2015 08:24 AM

  

The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure panel is trying to forge a long-term transportation bill, which sets policy and funding for the nation's roads and transit agencies. Panel Chairman Bill Shuster said that the measure will include a new section on technology aimed at addressing driverless cars and other in-development forms of transportation.

"These cars are coming," the Pennsylvania Republican said at a National Journal LIVE event Tuesday. "When we build a road in the next five to ten years, it's going to have a driverless vehicle on it sometime in the near future."

Lawmakers face challenges in designing roads that can accommodate such vehicles, everything from broad planning to specifics, such as what road and paint materials the next-gen cars could "sense" as they operate.

Shuster said he's talking to representatives from technology companies and the House Energy and Commerce Committee about how to start accounting for the new technology in a transportation bill. Elsewhere, Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh is working on a three-year study of autonomous cars.

Read the complete article from Nation Journal here.

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