The everyday use of hydrogen in the transport sector requires high safety standards. Safety requirements must be addressed as a key issue for fuel cell car development. Therefore, it becomes crucial to have experimental data on hand in order to provide realistic and reliable risk assessment and to be able to really know the extent of safety margins taken. In such a context, the National Institute of Industrial Environment and Risks (INERIS) along with the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), the French automotive manufacturer PSA PEUGEOT CITRO?N and the research Institute on unstable phenomena (IRPHE) recently started a research programme entitled DRIVE. This programme aims at providing experimental and numerical results for the safe design of hydrogen vehicles. Fields of investigation cover the whole range of phenomena that can be encountered in hydrogen accidents, from leakage to dispersion, ignition and finally combustion. The work programme and early results are presented in this article.