Green light for driverless car testing

Four UK cities have been chosen to find out how driverless cars might fit into everyday life. £10 million of funding from Innovate UK has given the green light for testing innovative driverless cars in the real world as announced by George Osborne in last week’s Autumn Financial Statement. Greenwich (south east London), Milton Keynes and Coventry (working together as one project) and Bristol will run formal trials lasting between 18 and 36 months from January 2015.

Testing driverless cars in a real-world environment will help lead to greater levels of understanding of these vehicles. It will also allow the public to accept how the vehicles will fit into everyday life. It is also hoped that this will establish the UK as the global hub for the research, development and integration of driverless vehicles and associated technologies.

Nick Jones, lead technologist for the low carbon vehicle innovation platform 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 is 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”.