Guardian News and Media/London
The UK is to encourage the development of driverless cars on its roads, it was announced yesterday, with a multi-million-pound research fund and a review into the relevant laws around road safety.
The Business Minister, Vince Cable, said a £10mn fund will be made available for driverless car researchers in the UK, joint funded by the department for business, innovation and skills (Bis) and the department for transport (DfT).
“The excellence of our scientists and engineers has established the UK as pioneers in the development of driverless vehicles through pilot projects,” said Cable.
“This announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society.”
The DfT will also kick off a review process of the laws governing road use, including the Highway Code and the Road Safety Act, to permit the testing of driverless cars on public roads, Cable said while visiting the technology and engineering company Mira in Nuneaton, central England.
Two types of testing will be reviewed for public roads: fully autonomous cars without a driver, and those with a qualified driver who could take control at any time, similar to laws in the US where driverless cars have been tested on public roads
since 2011 in some states.
The review process will conclude in a report submitted to government by the end of 2014, a spokesperson for DfT told the Guardian. The £10mn fund will be governed by the UK’s innovation agency - the Technology Strategy Board.
Interested local research institutions will be able to apply for funding by submitting a business case paired with a local city or authority as to why driverless cars are a viable transport solution in their area. Three cities across the UK will be selected to host driverless car trials from next year, with each test to last between 18 and 36 months starting in January 2015.
The deadline for driverless car research applications will be October 1. The fund was first announced by the Finance Minister, George Osborne, in December as part of the national infrastructure plan.
Google’s driverless cars hit headlines and the public consciousness in May, when the search giant announced a brand new bespoke prototype design.
The UK has various groups already working on driverless car technology, including engineers at the University of Oxford and engineering firm Mira, which provides autonomous vehicle technology to the military and has been testing driverless cars on a 850 acre site in the Midlands.
“This announcement takes us closer to seeing fully autonomous vehicles on our roads but it will take some time for them to become commonplace,” said Edmund King president of the AA.
Driverless cars are expected to begin being tested on public roads in 2015, although the DfT could not provide a timescale beyond report submission to the government by the end of 2014.
