Electronic driving licences

In Sweden, an Electronic Driving Licence has been developed and tested. The driving licence is a smart card containing personal information about the driver, including which vehicle types or even individual vehicles he or she is authorised to drive. The smart card serves as an ignition key, and the vehicle will only start if there is correspondence between the card and the vehicle unit [24].

A field trial with 15 vehicles has been carried out with support from the Swedish Road Administration. Myhrberg [37] concludes that the concept works in practice and that it could have a great effect on traffic safety by preventing unauthorised driving and car theft. The users have no problems getting used to the Driving Licence and in general their attitude to the new system is positive. There are, however, many practical issues to be solved before a large-scale introduction can take place [41].