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

  • UK Government fast tracks driverless cars
    July 30, 2014
    UK business secretary Vince Cable has announced two new measures today that give the green light for driverless cars to take to UK roads from January 2015. UK cities can now bid for a share of a US$16.9 million competition to host a driverless cars trial. The government is calling on cities to join together with businesses and research organisations to put forward proposals to become a test location. Up to three cities will be selected to host the trials from 2015 and each project is expected to last
  • Data is driving force behind TomTom's intelligent traffic management
    August 23, 2024
    The complexities of modern urban life have put unprecedented strain on transportation infrastructure. Traffic congestion, accidents, and inefficient resource allocation are persistent challenges. However, as Frans Keijzer, Bid Manager EMEA and APAC at TomTom Enterprise explains, a powerful tool has emerged to reshape the way we manage our roads: big data.
  • Dynamic lane closures cuts time, cost and congestion on Motorway roadworks
    March 17, 2014
    A combination of technologies is leading to major congestion and cost reductions during roadworks on the UK’s motorway network. Innovative construction programme scheduling technology and the deployment of moveable barriers has achieved substantial savings of money and time on UK motorway roadworks managed by the Highways Agency (HA). This combination has set the scene for a new generation of road usage analysis tools. The HA’s objective was to reduce the congestion caused by lane closures during roa
  • NXP and eSSys To provide ITS technologies for Korean C-ITS pilot project
    July 26, 2016
    South Korea has embarked on a year-long pilot of a next-generation Cooperative Intelligent Transportation System (C-ITS) project in preparation for the 2018 Winter Olympics. Dutch secure connectivity company NXP Semiconductors and Korean automotive electronics specialist eSSys are to be technology partners in the project, which begins this month, promoted by the Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. NXP will supply eSSys with its RoadLINK V2X chipset, a vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and v