Deployment gate (the second gate)

Also: second gate · post-type-approval authorisation · Betriebsbereichsgenehmigung · mise en service · druhá brána

Whatever a legal order requires, beyond the technical admissibility of the vehicle and its automated driving system, before driverless operation on a given road, for a given service and under a given actor is lawful: an operating-area approval, a service commissioning decision, a passenger-service permit, a conditional admission with a road-access pilot, or only a test permit. A gate has an object, a decision maker, an accountable actor and lifecycle rules that keep the authorisation honest when the system changes. It is the organising concept of Module 02.

Locus in the sources

ROAT-2026-0329

German Road Traffic Act (StVG) §§ 1d–1g – Motor vehicles with autonomous driving function in defined operating areas (Straßenverkehrsgesetz §§ 1d–1g) — § 1e
Approval of the defined operating area.

ROAT-2026-0330

Ordinance on the approval and operation of motor vehicles with autonomous driving function in defined operating areas, AFGBV (Verordnung zur Genehmigung und zum Betrieb von Kraftfahrzeugen mit autonomer Fahrfunktion in festgelegten Betriebsbereichen) — §§ 7–10
Operating permit and operating-area approval procedure.

ROAT-2026-0308

Decree No. 2021-873 of 29 June 2021 implementing Ordonnance No. 2021-443 (Décret n° 2021-873) — arts. R.3152-10 to R.3152-12
Mise en service decision after the safety demonstration.

ROAT-2026-0304

Ordinance amending the Ordinance on special conditions for vehicles used in public road transport and own-account transport, NN 154/2024 (Pravilnik o izmjenama i dopunama Pravilnika o posebnim uvjetima za vozila kojima se obavlja javni cestovni prijevoz i prijevoz za vlastite potrebe) — Arts. 13b–13d
Real-world service validation before licensing.

ROAT-2026-0301

The Automated Vehicles (Permits for Automated Passenger Services) Regulations 2026 — SI 2026/439
Automated passenger service permits under Part 5 of the AV Act 2024.

ROAT-2026-0156

Act No. 106/2018 Coll. on the Operation of Vehicles in Road Traffic (Zákon č. 106/2018 Z. z.) — § 49
Test-operation permit as the only general gate in Slovak law.

Related concepts

Post-type-approval deployment models

Regime	Additional deployment / road-use gate
Germany – current law	Vehicle operating permit + authority approval of defined operating area + registration before autonomous road use
France – current law	Prior system safety demonstration + qualified independent opinions + formal mise-en-service decision
Croatia – current law	Dedicated road-traffic rules plus mandatory real-world service validation before passenger-service deployment
Great Britain – 2026 transitional current law	Automated Passenger Service permit under Part 5 of the AV Act 2024 (in force 15 May 2026) for eligible passenger services; other deployments run as pilots under vehicle special orders; Part 1 authorisation not yet commenced at snapshot
China – current transitional regime	Product admission is followed by geographically/functionally limited road-access pilot rather than unrestricted deployment
China – 2026 Road Traffic Safety Law draft prospective	Registered AV may activate ADS only within design operating conditions; national road-use rules sit above technical conformity
Slovakia – current law (31 Aug 2026)	Predominantly § 49 test-operation permit; the only non-test deployment gate is the operational permit for automated delivery vehicles under § 52 of Act 106/2018; no general dedicated commercial FAV deployment gate
Slovakia – CPT 1329 prospective model prospective	Operator licence + specific operation approval would create a genuine second gate