LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), April 4 (SeeNews) – Several Slovenian companies signed a letter of intent on Tuesday to develop an ecosystem for the development of solutions for autonomous vehicles, which will see the establishment of a testing ground for driverless cars, the country's infrastructure ministry said.
The letter of intent, backed by the infrastructure ministry, was signed by the property development company BTC, its project company AV Living Lab, motorway company DARS and auto club AMZS, the ministry said.
The companies have agreed to create an ecosystem in which they will develop a learning environment that will allow the development of solutions for autonomous vehicles, the ministry noted.
It added that by engaging in the testing of autonomous vehicles, Slovenia could put itself at the forefront of countries that have mastered this technology.
"We are going a step further by signing the letter of intent to establish a single Slovenian ecosystem to develop solutions for autonomous vehicles," infrastructure minister Peter Gaspersic is quoted saying.
"In addition to the new form of mobility, this also represents a great economic opportunity in the future," he added.
According to news agency STA, the letter of intent also foresees turning the 11 km of roads in the Ljubljana BTC shopping district into a driverless car testing ground.
Last month, Slovenia also signed a memorandum on cross-border cooperation with Austria and Hungary in the development and testing of electric cars, integrated and autonomous vehicles.
The key objective of thel three countries is to digitise and decarbonise mobility, while also addressing the issue of high traffic growth.