The government has announced plans for more than 40 miles of UK public roads to be equipped with technologies to aid autonomous vehicles.
The plans, which will us a £20m chunk of the government’s £100m Intelligent Mobility Fund, is one of eight schemes aimed at developing driverless-car technologies.
New roadside communications equipment will be installed along the ‘Connected and Autonomous Vehicle corridor’, using roads around Coventry and Solihull, during the three year project.
In all, a fleet of 100 connected and highly-automated cars, including five Jaguar Land Rover research vehicles, will be used.
Business Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed the move during a visit to another test site, in Nuneaton, on Monday.
He said: “Our cars of the future will be equipped with the technologies that will make getting from A to B safer, faster, and cleaner.”
“They will alert drivers of accidents ahead and be able to receive information from their surroundings about hazards, increasing the safety of drivers, passengers and pedestrians.”
The eight projects which will take place in Bristol, Milton Keynes and Greenwich, as well as Coventry, are:
- UK Connected Intelligent Transport Environment – Exploring the benefits of “talking car” technologies, on 40 miles of Coventry roads.
- Insight – Developing driverless shuttles with advanced sensors and control systems, with a focus on providing transport for disabled and visually impaired people.
- Tools for autonomous logistics operations and management – Developing modelling tools in collaboration between transport modellers and the computer games industry.
- Flourish – Developing tools to improve the understanding of users’ needs with regard to autonomous vehicles, in Bristol.
- Move-UK – Accelerating the creation and market readiness of autonomous driving systems.
- Innovative Testing of Autonomous Control Techniques – Trying to reduce the cost of testing driverless systems.
- Pathway to Autonomous Commercial Vehicles – Explore technologies to monitor vehicle data to predict safety risks.
- i-Motors – Intelligent Mobility for Future Cities Transport Systems – Developing hardware that analyses sensory data in real-time.
