On Saturday morning, under the initiative of the South Australian Government, Volvo successfully tested two of its XC90 vehicles on Adelaide's Southern Expressway. Co-ordinated by Australian Road Research Board Group, the event was a part of the Australian Driverless Vehicle Initiative (ADVI).

Earlier this year, Volvo launched a public pilot program to be officially launched in Sweden by 2017. The program will see 100 self driving cars being tested by common people on certain roads in Gothenburg, Sweden. Before the official release in Sweden, two cars were tested in Australia.

To test its ability, the Volvo XC-90 underwent an array of exercises including automatic lane keeping, adaptive cruise control and active queue assist without human intervention . The introduction of fully autonomous vehicles will require necessary regulatory approvals to operate into the everyday traffic.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill along with deputy police commissioner Linda Williams accompanied one of the two vehicles being tested in Adelaide. He expresses immense hope in this maiden initiative and was thrilled to be part of this experience. South Australia is the only state to revise its road laws to allow driverless vehicles on busy roads.

“There are just so many people that are getting killed and maimed on our roads, if we can find a way of reducing that, that's obviously a great thing for our community,” said Weatherill, as reported by ZDNet.

A report in The Sydney Morning Herald mentioned that the demonstrations were a part of a public relations exercise to introduce the concept of autonomous vehicles to Australians. However, ARRB Group marks it as the pioneering effort in a series of national research and field trials.

Gerard Waldron, managing director of ARRB Group, opined that death on the road will become rare once driverless cars “go mainstream.” The federal Labor MP for Perth, Alannah MacTiernan , who was present at the event, mentioned that driverless cars would essentially require constant wireless communication. Driverless cars are expected to appear on Australian roads by 2020.

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