TRENTON — A new bill introduced in the New Jersey Legislature would create a three-year pilot program to allow the testing of fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) on state roads under strict regulatory oversight.
The pilot, to be managed by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission in consultation with the Department of Transportation, would authorize approved testers to operate AVs only under specific conditions. The bill mandates that a trained operator must be seated in the driver’s seat at all times, ready to take manual control, and in possession of a valid driver’s license.
The initiative also requires testers to submit proof of at least $5 million in liability coverage and register each vehicle with the commission. The commission’s chief administrator would have the authority to immediately suspend any tester’s operation if public safety risks arise or compliance is not met.
The program will be overseen by a five-member task force of safety officials, transportation experts, consumer advocates, and AV industry representatives. The task force is tasked with providing quarterly reports, developing safety protocols, coordinating with law enforcement, and soliciting public input.
Autonomous vehicles operating under the pilot must meet several technical and safety standards. These include redundant safety systems, manual override capability, collision data logging, speed limit compliance, pedestrian alert sounds, encrypted data storage, and visible AV identification.
“All AV collisions are to be reported to the department within 48 hours,” the bill states. The Department of Transportation is further directed to establish test environments, including closed and open-road testbeds, and coordinate smart infrastructure development such as sensor-equipped roads and real-time traffic systems.
AVs used as taxis would be limited to designated highways, marked clearly as autonomous, and required to maintain continuous communication with monitoring systems. For commercial trucks, autonomous platooning would be allowed under certain conditions, with only the lead vehicle requiring a human driver.
A final report evaluating the program’s performance and offering recommendations for future AV integration is to be submitted to the Governor and Legislature within six months after the pilot’s completion.