They drive themselves: driverless cars may appear on Russian roads
As early as next year, self-driving cars without a test driver in the cockpit may appear on a number of routes in our country. This is stipulated by the draft government decree developed by the Ministry of Economic Development. The document suggests an increase in the number of regions where autonomous vehicles can be operated, and also clarifies additional requirements for such equipment. The details are in the Izvestia article.
Self-driving cars in new regions
The Ministry of Economic Development has prepared a draft government decree providing for the extension of the experimental legal regime (EPR) for the operation of highly automated vehicles (VATS) until the end of autumn 2028. The document is posted on the federal portal of draft regulatory legal acts. The extension, as follows from the explanatory note to the draft resolution, is due to the fact that the validity period of the current EPR for WAT ends on November 28 of this year. In addition to extending the validity of the EPR for another three years, it is planned to expand the list of regions in which it will operate.
"An experimental legal regime is being established on the highways of the unmanned logistics corridor, as well as on the territory of the highway service facilities of the unmanned logistics corridor, designated by the infrastructure operator and specially designed for servicing highly automated vehicles located in the territories of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladimir, Leningrad, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Sverdlovsk and Tver the regions, the Perm Territory, the Republic of Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and the Chuvash Republic," the draft resolution says.
According to experts, the expansion of the list of regions in which the EPR will operate is due to the recent opening of a new section of the M-12 Vostok highway.
— In mid-July, traffic was opened on the M–12 highway from Kazan to Yekaterinburg on the Achit-Dyurtyuli section. Now this highway runs through Bashkiria, the Perm Region and the Sverdlovsk Region. It is quite logical that the EPR for unmanned vehicles has been proposed to expand to these regions," Igor Morzharetto, a member of the presidium of the Public Council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, told Izvestia.
As previously stated by Albert Karimov, Deputy head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, unmanned truck traffic is planned to be launched on the M-12 Vostok highway this fall.
— We started with the M-11 highway two years ago, in April of this year such a regime was introduced on the Central Ring Road, in the fall we plan to expand it to the M-12 highway, — he noted.
With an empty cabin
Along with the extension of the EPR regime and its expansion to a number of new regions, the project plans to change the requirements for unmanned vehicles involved in traffic on the roads of the unmanned logistics corridor. As follows from the document, it is supposed to allow "highly automated vehicles of the second category" to drive along these routes. Currently, according to Decree No. 1849 of the Government of the Russian Federation dated October 17, 2022, such a vehicle is understood to be "a highly automated vehicle operating with a test engineer in the cabin who does not perform the functions of a driver (including a test driver), with remote routing and dispatching by the dispatcher of a highly automated vehicle."
Now they propose to adjust this requirement. In particular, as follows from the document, in this definition, the phrase "with a test engineer in the cabin who does not perform the functions of a driver (including a test driver)" is planned to be replaced by the words "in automated control mode without a driver (including a test driver)".
This means that second-category VATS will be able to drive on motorways within the logistics corridor without a person in the cockpit at all.
The Ministry of Economic Development could not promptly respond to Izvestia's request regarding the possibility of launching such unmanned vehicles on roads and the timing of their appearance on highways.
At the same time, judging by the annex to the draft resolution, in the first half of the fourth year of the EPR (taking into account its introduction in 2022, we are talking about 2026), the mileage of the second category of WATS should be at least 10 thousand km, and in 2028 — at least 100 thousand km.
With minimal risk
The draft resolution contains other new requirements for the VTS. Thus, a new term is being introduced — "minimum risk maneuver". It is understood as "a sequence of actions performed by an automated driving system aimed at minimizing the risks of an accident and ensuring road safety in the event of a critical malfunction of the automated driving system or other VTS system or failure by the test driver (if any) to take control after the automated driving system submits an appropriate notification, leading to a safe stop of the VTS." At the same time, such a maneuver should be carried out with a deceleration of WATTS in the range of 1-4 m/s.
The automated driving system installed on the vehicle should prevent an unmanned vehicle from colliding with a "road user or an object blocking a lane", as well as keep the car in a given lane.
As follows from the explanatory note to the document, the security requirements of the VATS were "clarified and finalized taking into account the experience of their actual operation."
A reserve for the future
As of April of this year, 67 unmanned trucks were operating on the M-11 Neva highway and the Central Ring Road. By the end of this year, their number should increase to 100 units.
"Currently, there are a total of 24 [unmanned] KamAZ trucks in operation," Oleg Afanasyev, the head of the company's press service, told Izvestia.
He noted that now the legislation will not allow such cars to be operated without a test driver in the cockpit. At the same time, the economic feasibility of using an unmanned truck is manifested precisely in a fully autonomous mode, the representative of the Russian automobile plant emphasized.
— Now the main focus is on the development of the Mayak-2 project, which involves, among other things, fully autonomous movement of the car, — said Oleg Afanasyev.
EPR provides legal grounds to test unmanned vehicles of various degrees of automation in real conditions, including trucks without drivers, says Anton Shaparin, Vice President of the National Automobile Union. At the same time, it imposes a serious responsibility: such vehicles will need to travel thousands of kilometers on public roads, he emphasizes.
— Now Russia has become one of the world leaders in autonomous technologies, and this is a great opportunity to overcome the shortage of personnel in logistics. It is already estimated at 1 million people and will increase as the population ages and the number of drivers decreases," the NAS Vice President is confident.
In his opinion, there are no special problems with the safety of such machines. As follows from the data of the Ministry of Economic Development, in 2022-2024, 36 accidents involving them were recorded in Russia, and only two incidents occurred due to the unmanned vehicles themselves. At the same time, we are talking about all such cars, including those that are used as taxis.
Logistics issues
When using fully unmanned trucks for commercial cargo transportation, a number of issues and difficulties may arise, warns Taras Koval, president of the Association of Transport Experts and Specialists. One of them is related to the remoteness of logistics centers from the routes where the EPR operates, he notes.
— Loading and unloading points are located away from the Central Ring Road, the M-11 and M-12 highways. Now, when the driver is in the cockpit of an unmanned truck, he takes control of the car on the so-called last mile. If the car is fully autonomous, it will have to be stopped at some site at the exit from the highway so that the driver can drive the truck to the unloading point, or hook the semi-trailer to a conventional tractor," he told Izvestia.
Another possible problem is related to the correct placement and fastening of the load, Taras Koval notes. Now the driver of the drone is responsible for this. When switching to transportation by fully autonomous vehicles, this task will fall on the shipper, he believes.
The extension of the EPR mode and the introduction of new requirements for the VTS, including the possibility of operating them without the presence of a person in the cockpit, is the right way, Maxim Kadakov, editor-in-chief of Za Rulem magazine, is convinced. However, it is not worth rushing to implement such schemes on an ongoing basis, he believes.
— It is obvious that the future belongs to unmanned technologies in the field of logistics. And it is absolutely true that the government is working in this direction and developing them as part of an experiment. Nevertheless, in order to implement them in everyday life, it is necessary to take into account and test all possible nuances related to the operation of unmanned vehicles on public roads, resolve all issues that have arisen, including the necessary infrastructure, and create digital road backups for autonomous vehicles. Only after that it will be possible to talk about the use of such transport in everyday life," Maxim Kadakov told Izvestia.
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