June 26 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia have agreed to develop an experimental 5G cross-border corridor that will allow for the testing of driverless vehicles, the European Commission said on Tuesday.
The three countries signed a letter of intent at the Digital Assembly 2018 in Sofia to work together on the Thessaloniki – Sofia – Belgrade corridor, which will provide a technologically neutral hub for industry, research centers, academia and any other stakeholders for testing and evaluating innovative mobility technologies, the EC said in a statement.
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By signing the letter of intent, the countries have agreed to start assessing existing and upcoming technologies in the field of connected and automated driving; analyze opportunities and positive externalities of the deployment of automated and connected vehicles; foster the use of connected and automated vehicles in order to optimize the impacts on mobility; raise public awareness; and work jointly towards coordinated policies and regulation of automated driving.
This new agreement builds on a number of previous ones between a number of European countries, and underlines that a pan-European network of 5G corridors is now emerging.
Last year, 27 member states agreed to develop large scale testing of connected and automated mobility on European motorways cross-border corridors as part of the Digital Day 2017.
"This collaborative network between European countries will enable a better environment for the testing and deployment of 5G technology, and will allow tests to be conducted with driverless vehicles over hundreds of kilometres of motorways," the EC said.
The 5G corridors make Europe the biggest experiment area rolling out the 5G technology.