Test Area Autonomous Driving Baden-Württemberg (TAF BW)

At the Test Area Autonomous Driving Baden-Württemberg (TAF BW), companies and research institutions can test future-oriented technologies and services related to connected and automated driving in everyday road traffic, such as automated driving of cars, buses or commercial vehicles like street cleaning or delivery services.

Unlike other projects in Germany, the test field includes all types of public roads: Highway sections, state and federal highways, inner-city routes with bicycle, pedestrian and streetcar traffic as well as speed-30 zones, residential areas and parking garages. The test area routes are located between Karlsruhe, Bruchsal and Heilbronn. For this purpose, a consortium prepared traffic areas of various types, generated high-precision 3-D maps and installed sensors for real-time recording of traffic and its influencing factors.

The FZI Research Center for Information Technology is taking the lead in the consortium during the set-up phase and is contributing expertise in the perception of road users at intersections, networked infrastructure and IT data management. In addition, the existing research vehicles will also be made available to interested test area users as sensor carriers and research platforms. The topic of data protection and the legal framework are also being investigated and taken into account by the FZI.

In addition to the FZI, the consortium includes the city of Karlsruhe, the Karlsruher Verkehrsverbund KVV, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, the Fraunhofer Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB, the Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences and the city of Bruchsal, as well as other associated partners. The test area was officially opened in May 2018 and is operated by Karlsruher Verkehrsgesellschaft (KVV).