Driverless cars head to the streets
Four cities have been chosen by Innovate UK to run formal trials to see how driverless cars could be integrated into everyday life across the country.
Following high quality applications to our £10m driverless cars competition, in the Autumn Statement today government has provided an additional £9m to back the four cities (two working together in one project) which have now been given the green light to start their exciting and innovative work from January 2015.
The chosen cities are:
Greenwich, South East London
Milton Keynes and Coventry (one project)
Bristol
The trials will see driverless car research taking place in the real-world and lead to a better understanding of how the technology needs to develop and how people interact with the vehicles. It will also help the public get used to seeing the vehicles on the streets. The trials will last between 18 and 36 months and start on 1 January 2015.
Nick Jones, lead technologist at Innovate UK, said:
“Cars that drive themselves would represent the most significant transformation in road travel since the introduction of the internal combustion engine and at Innovate UK, we want to help the UK to lead the world in making that happen.
“There are so many new and exciting technologies that can come together to make driverless cars a reality, but it’s vital that trials are carried out safely, that the public have confidence in that technology and we learn everything we can through the trials so that legal, regulation and protection issues don’t get in the way in the future.”
