1001 Smart Cities
🚲 Mobility
🇩🇪 Hamburg

TAVF Test Track for Automated and Connected Driving

A 12 km corridor through Hamburg's inner city where more than 50 traffic lights and a bascule bridge broadcast signal timing to vehicles over ITS-G5. Open since 2018 to any carmaker or research institute; Volkswagen, Continental, DLR and the EU truck-automation project MODI have used it. Predates, rather than follows, the 2021 ITS World Congress.

Live 📅 since 2018 ◆ Source-checked

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below — how this works · 🔎 Last verified

🚲 MobilityAutonomous vehiclesSensors & IoTConnectivity & 5GTraffic management
Evidence🏛️ Official
Scale🏘️ District
FundingJust under €8 million from Germany's Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV) under its municipal traffic-system digitalisation programme, plus EU Connecting Europe Facility support

📖 Terms in this entry: Adaptive traffic signals · LoRaWAN · ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition)

Sources

↗ Behörde für Verkehr und Mobilitätswende — TAVF test trackCity page: ~12 km route, ITS-G5 road-side units, >2,000 test drives, just under €8m BMDV funding, ~20 partners. States driverless operation remains undecided pending legal clarity.
↗ New Mobility Solutions Hamburg — TAVF (operator)Current operator page: more than 50 traffic lights plus a drawbridge, 802.11p/ITS-G5, SPaT/MAP.
↗ DLR — Hamburg test field (VITAL project)Independent research use: K94 intersection, thermal-imaging detection, cooperative signal control, validated through end of 2021.
↗ Behörde für Verkehr und Mobilitätswende — MODI projectConfirms TAVF's cooperative infrastructure is in active use for EU autonomous-truck trials.
↗ CINEA — MODI projectEU source: €23m Horizon Europe grant, 29 partners, October 2022 to March 2026, Hamburg as one of four terminal sites.

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed above and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

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Compare this project

🇨🇳 Beijing High-Level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Area (Yizhuang) · Beijing Both frame automation around roadside sensing, not the vehicle. Beijing hit an approvals freeze; Hamburg never permitted driverless. 🇩🇪 smartPORT Hamburg · Hamburg Another verified project from Hamburg. 🇩🇪 Diesel Driving Ban on Max-Brauer-Allee & Stresemannstraße · Hamburg Another verified project from Hamburg.

Explore the wider context

🚦 Asphalt or algorithms🚗 Autonomous vehicles guide🏙️ Hamburg city profile🚲 Mobility projects
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “TAVF Test Track for Automated and Connected Driving” — Hamburg, Germany. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/hamburg-tavf-testbed/ (last verified 2026-08-02). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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