UK town to test driver-less cars to be introduced in 2015
09 Nov 2013
Driver-less cars will be tested for the first time in a UK town through a £1.5-million government grant.
The "pods", traveling at 12 mph (19km/h), on designated pathways would ferry people around Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, about 72 km north-west of London.
According to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 20 driver-operated vehicles would be running by 2015, but 100 fully-automated versions would be introduced by 2017.
The initiative forms part of a £75 million government scheme to allow businesses to make and test low carbon technologies, which according to the government, would keep the UK at the forefront of engine design and help to safeguard up to 30,000 jobs in engine production.
The electric-powered pods could be booked via a smartphone app and would be able to accommodate two passengers.
Since its inception in the 1960s, Milton Keynes had been envisioned as a town at the cutting edge of transport technology.
According to the original plan, championed by the famous architect Fred Pooley, it was to shape up as densely populated high-rise town built around a monorail system.
The plan was however, discarded in favour of the American model, a spaced-out town built on a grid system to allow people to get around easily by car.
The news follows an announcement yesterday's that the new Advanced Propulsion Centre in the UK would invest £75 million in low carbon automotive technologies.
Business secretary Vince Cable said, driver-less cars were another invention that had the potential to generate the kind of high-skilled jobs the UK wanted.
He added, the car industry had gone from strength to strength, but there was a need to look at the long-term challenges and opportunities to ensure the sector continued to succeed and grow.
Engineering consultancy firm Arup, The Automotive Council, Transport Systems Catapult, and Cambridge and Oxford Universities are the initial collaborators on the project.
Initial illustrations show a two-wheeled vehicle bearing a close resemblance to General Motors' EN-V concept car but there had been no announcement on whether the system would use new technology or an existing vehicle.
Another potential candidate could be the autonomous pod cars developed by Bristol firm Ultra Global PRT, operating at the Heathrow Terminal 5 for a number of years.
