Driverless cars appear at exhibition to show they can operate safely in London

A fleet of driverless cars have appeared at a London exhibition to show they can operate safely in the capital.  

The DRIVEN consortium, which is into its 30-month as a government-supported project, demonstrated the capabilities in the capital’s Olympic Park. 

The jointly-funded £13.6m programme gave a week-long demonstration around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford to show how autonomous vehicle (AV) technology might act in every-day conditions.

DRIVEN say they they have taken a comprehensive approach to addressing the challenges facing self-driving vehicles in the cities of London and Oxford, going beyond the technical obstacles and examining the entire autonomous vehicle ‘ecosystem’. 

It combines a wide range of technical experts in areas such as local authority planning, insurance, cyber-security and data trading. The coalition of experts include Oxbotica, Oxford Robotics Institute, Axa XL, Nominet, Telefonica, TRL, RACE, Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) and Transport for London (TfL). 

The project is adhering fully to the Department for Transport’s Code of Practice and Transport for London’s (TfL) recently published London-specific guidance for Connected and Autonomous Trials. Minister of State at the Department for Transport, George Freeman MP, said: “Self-driving technology has the scope to revolutionise the way people travel, with potentially profound benefits for road safety, accessibility and ​convenience. ​We want to drive the roll-out of self-driving vehicles and continue to support innovators developing this ground-breaking technology. The success of trials like project DRIVEN underpin our Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy, highlighting our ongoing support for innovation, research and the trialling of exciting new technology which cements our position as a global leader in this space.” 

Image credit: DRIVEN