Skip to main content

AECOM-led consortium secures funding for CAV pilot scheme

An AECOM-led consortium has secured more than US$5.2 million (£4.2 million) of funding from Innovate UK and the Centre for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) to deliver a pilot scheme that could pave the way for the use of connected and autonomous vehicles to move people around airports, hospitals, business parks, shopping and tourist centres. The pilot project includes the design, development and testing of new autonomous and connected pods on-demand (PODs), culminating in on-road public trials at L
April 13, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
An 3525 AECOM-led consortium has secured more than US$5.2 million (£4.2 million) of funding from Innovate UK and the Centre for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) to deliver a pilot scheme that could pave the way for the use of connected and autonomous vehicles to move people around airports, hospitals, business parks, shopping and tourist centres.

The pilot project includes the design, development and testing of new autonomous and connected pods on-demand (PODs), culminating in on-road public trials at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Comprising 20 partnering organisations, the AECOM-led CAPRI consortium brings together academic institutions, businesses, SMEs and public sector authorities with a range of skills, knowledge and needs in the connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) arena. The project will include the development of the next generation of PODs, as well as the systems and technologies that will allow the vehicles to navigate safely and seamlessly in both pedestrian and road environments.

The consortium will also look at how the network can harness data to enable location, positioning and on-demand services. It is anticipated that evidence collected through the pilot will provide sufficient detail to enable and support a new vehicle classification for the PODs.

The project includes four trials, with the first on private land at Filton Airfield near Bristol, with the aim of testing and validating the performance of the new generation PODs. The second trial will test a public service in a shopping centre car park to assess performance in busy pedestrian areas. The final two trials will be at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and will test a public on-demand mobility service in pedestrian areas, with the PODs identifying and navigating the best routes, as well as a public test on a network of roads, with the service interacting with traffic control systems.  

An important aspect of the scheme will be safety and security. For the first time, the project will apply accident analysis to PODs to identify potential causes of accidents that will require testing and evaluation in the real-world, while using state-of-the-art techniques to simulate other scenarios, therefore reducing the need for real-world testing. The consortium will also undertake a system-wide cyber-physical security analysis to identify how to protect the POD systems from being compromised.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Q-Free solution keeps m-ways on move
    March 30, 2022
    Q-Free Traffic design, a Slovenian subsidiary of Q-Free, has recently deployed a new version of central highway ATMS application software to manage traffic on motorway networks. The new application is already in its 3rd generation: the previous two have been operational since 2004.
  • DEKRA builds test area for connected driving in Malaga, Spain
    September 22, 2017
    German vehicle inspection organisation DEKRA is building a connected car test area in Malaga, Spain, as part of its international testing network for connected and automated driving. The test area will open before the end of 2017and area will focus on R&D and early production testing, while the existing test ground at DEKRA in Klettwitz and the Lausitzring race track in Germany, recently acquired by DEKRA, will be set up for automotive systems, whole vehicle and infrastructure testing.
  • Car makers test next generation connected car communications technology
    July 11, 2016
    Audi, Deutsche Telekom, Huawei, Toyota Motor Europe and other car manufacturers are currently carrying out technical field trials on testing LTE-Vehicular (LTE-V), which is seen as a potential enabler for road safety applications and traffic control services as well as emerging automated driving use. The tests, which are being carried out on the A9 motorway in Germany, with the objective of assessing the performance of LTE-V for connected vehicle communications during its standardisation process. LTE
  • Indra to coordinate European Mobiwallet project
    April 8, 2014
    International consulting and technology company Indra is coordinating the consortium of 15 companies and government bodies that is developing the Mobiwallet project, which will be piloted in the cities of Santander, Florence and Novi Sad and the West Midlands region of the UK. MobiWallet will turn any smartphone into a payment terminal with top-up on the go anywhere, thanks to technologies like NFC tags, 2D barcodes, interactive websites and augmented reality. An innovative platform will process the paym