How will Denmark get ready for self-driving cars?

Billions of dollars are being spent on developing the first functioning driverless cars – and when they become available, Denmark is among the ten countries in the world best equipped to let them loose on its road network. This is demonstrated by the KPMG Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index (AVRI), featuring Denmark for the first time this year.

”Denmark actually occupies a better position than even such a car production super-power as Germany and is at about the level of the United Kingdom. That is pretty impressive,” says Morten Reimer, Senior Manager and head of the KPMG Infrastructure and Transportation unit in Denmark.

According to the report, available via the link below, the strong showing is due to Denmark’s highly functional transport infrastructure, a high degree of digitalisation, technology preparedness and public acceptance of self-driving vehicles among other things.

Some experiences have been gained with pilot experiments, for example in the form of self-driving minibuses in Aalborg. However, there is room for improvement. As a whole, Denmark is lagging behind compared to the US and Singapore when it comes to large-scale projects such as testing autonomous vehicles in traffic. 

"We are missing out on experiences that can teach us about how self-driving cars and buses are integrated into traffic, how they are used by users in practice and how we optimise the road network. If we dare to invest more here, there is a basis for coming to the forefront in an extremely exciting development area,” says Morten Reimer.

• Denmark in top ten of nations most ready for driver-less cars. Ahead of nations such as Germany, otherwise known as a car production super-power.
  

• Most countries in the analysis have made progress when comparing with 2019. A full 17 of the participants in last year’s analysis show increased preparedness.
  

• Several countries are grouped rather closely, giving individual countries a strong opportunity to improve until 2021.