{"id":215319,"date":"2025-06-26T07:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T07:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/215319\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T07:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T07:41:11","slug":"minister-gives-update-on-the-introduction-of-self-driving-taxis-in-northern-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/215319\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister gives update on the introduction of self-driving taxis in Northern Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

This comes as a self-driving bus is set to come into use in Belfast in the coming weeks.\"ADriverless taxis will be permitted on UK roads from next year(Image: Eli Hartman\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Infrastructure Minister<\/a> Liz Kimmins has responded to questions around the introduction of self-driving taxis in Northern Ireland. The Minister was responding to a written question from SDLP <\/a>MLA Daniel McCrossan, who had asked whether she would consider a pilot scheme similar to the one recently announced in England by the UK Government\u2019s Transport Secretary.<\/p>\n

The proposed scheme in GB is set to trial fully autonomous vehicles, without a safety driver, under a legislative framework that currently only applies in Great Britain.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland<\/a>, however, lacks the necessary laws to allow such vehicles on public roads without a human operator.<\/p>\n

In a written response, Minister Kimmins<\/a> said: \u201cThe proposed self-driving taxi pilot scheme is based within the legislative framework in Great Britain for the use of fully autonomous vehicles without a safety driver. There is no such framework here.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that her department will \u201cmonitor the progress of the pilot scheme.”<\/p>\n

This comes as a self-driving bus is set to come into use in Belfast<\/a> in the coming weeks. The Harlander will transport passengers from Titanic train halt to Catalyst Science Park in the Titanic Quarter.<\/p>\n

However, it will have a safety operator on board with the view that the service will be fully autonomous by 2029.<\/p>\n

Self-driving taxis and buses will be allowed on roads in GB without a safety driver starting in Spring 2026, with a view to a wider rollout when the Automated Vehicles Act comes into full effect in 2027.<\/p>\n

The UK Government<\/a>\u2019s ambition to roll out self-driving technology has sparked debate about how and when such innovations could be introduced in Northern Ireland. But for now, a ride in a robotaxi looks to be some way off for local passengers.<\/p>\n

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage<\/strong> here<\/a> and sign up to our politics newsletter<\/a> here.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This comes as a self-driving bus is set to come into use in Belfast in the coming weeks.Driverless…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[84491,1144,285,925,11191,85608,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-215319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-department-for-infrastructure","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-politics","11":"tag-sdlp","12":"tag-stormont","13":"tag-titanic-quarter","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114748541188120784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}