London autonomous pod trial and design revealed

London becomes the first city to have a fleet of public driverless vehicles

The design for the first driverless cars to be tested on the streets of London has been revealed, making the city the first to have a fleet of public driverless vehicles this summer.

The ‘Ultra POD’ technology is part of the TRL-led GATEway driverless car pilot in Greenwich which will ferry passengers between terminals at Gatwick and Heathrow airports and will be tested on pavements at Greenwich Peninsula from July.

The £8 million project behind the pods is jointly funded by government agency Innovate UK and industry. The ones that have operated at Heathrow Terminal five for nearly five years, these zero-emission, battery operated pods have carried more than 1.5 million passengers, and eliminated the need for 700,000 bus journeys and their associated emissions on local roads to the airport. The project will also enable the cars to operate without dedicated tracks. 

Professor Nick Reed, academy director at TRL and technical director for GATEway, said: “The addition of three prominent and respected British organisations to the GATEway consortium further strengthens the UK’s position as a leader in autonomous technologies. Each company brings a great deal of experience to the project which will prove valuable in helping us to understand how the public and industry will adapt to the use of automated vehicles in the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab test environment in Greenwich. If the trials prove successful, we expect these iconic vehicles to become a familiar sight in many cities around the world.”

On the release of the design of the vehicles, Reed told PE: “What really convinced us to go with the consortium selected was the combination of the engineering innovation and expertise of Westfield Sportscars in manufacturing the vehicles; Heathrow’s experience in successfully operating an automated vehicle service at the airport for several years; and Oxbotica adding the absolute leading edge sensor and navigation software and technology from the University of Oxford Mobile Robotics Group into the package to enable automated operation. Furthermore, all three companies involved are established British organisations.”

To date the vehicles have been used in segregated guideways at Heathrow airport where the vehicles should not encounter any other obstacles or pedestrians. To make the vehicles suitable for trials in Greenwich, Reed explained that the company will be adding significant additional sensor capabilities to detect the environment surrounding the vehicle and sophisticated software to enable the vehicle to ‘understand’ that environment and determine how the vehicle should proceed.

Reed said: “Furthermore, in order to comply with the DfT Code of Practice for testing automated vehicles, the vehicles will be operating with a steward that will be able to intervene if required for any reason. Therefore, we will be changing the glazed areas of the vehicle to ensure that the steward has sufficient visibility to be able to monitor the vehicle surroundings.”

The shuttle trial, which is one of three automated vehicle tests within the GATEway project, aims to investigate public acceptance of automated shuttle vehicles within the urban mobility landscape. Other trials set to take place in the project include autonomous valet parking and automated deliveries.

Reed added: "Our primary goal is to understand how the vehicles fit into the urban mobility landscape and in particular how do users come to trust and accept automated vehicles as a genuinely useful transport service in the city, safely and effectively integrated with other transport modes.

"We also want to know how it effects other pedestrians and cyclists in the vicinity of the vehicles to ensure vehicle operation does not negatively influence their journeys. We will also, I’m sure, be learning huge amounts about the capabilities and limitations of this technology and how to navigate the regulatory and insurance issues that are associated with these systems."