Autonomous grocery delivery trials in Greenwich

The TRL-led GATEway Project, together with Ocado Technology (a division of Ocado, the online-only supermarket) is running the UK’s first trials of an autonomous vehicle around the Berkeley Homes, Royal Arsenal Riverside development in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, London.
June 28, 2017 Read time: 3 mins

The 491 TRL-led GATEway Project, together with Ocado Technology (a division of Ocado, the online-only supermarket) is running the UK’s first trials of an autonomous vehicle around the Berkeley Homes, Royal Arsenal Riverside development in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, London. The real world trials see a self-driving delivery vehicle, CargoPod, operating in a residential environment, delivering grocery orders to over one hundred customers.
 
CargoPod, developed by 8307 Oxbotica as part of the GATEway Project, is guided by its autonomy software system Selenium, which enables real-time, accurate navigation, planning and perception in dynamic environments. The pod is able to carry a total of 128kg of groceries at a time.

The focus of the study is both on the commercial opportunities of self-driving technology and how it functions alongside people in a residential environment. This, the third of four trials with the GATEway Project, is exploring the public’s perceptions and understanding of driverless delivery vehicles. Ocado Technology is using the trials to explore the logistics and practicalities of deploying self-driving vehicles as part of the last mile offering for the Ocado Smart Platform, an end-to-end solution for providing grocery retailers around the world with a shortcut for moving online.

The research findings will also help guide the wider roll out of autonomous vehicles which, in the future, may play an important role in cutting inner city congestion and air pollution. The trial is run in partnership with ‘Digital Greenwich’, an initiative that has established Greenwich as a smart cit’, where new technologies are being developed and tested in real, complex urban environments.

GATEway is one of several projects taking place in the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab at Greenwich - an open, real world, validated test environment for the evaluation of the next generation of connected and autonomous vehicles.

Taking place in the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab, the GATEway Project (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment) is led by TRL and funded by UK government and industry. It aims to demonstrate the use of autonomous vehicles for ‘last mile’ deliveries and mobility, seamlessly connecting existing distribution and transport hubs with residential and commercial areas using zero emission, low noise transport systems. 

The GATEway project is supported by the UK Government's Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), a joint Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the 1837 Department for Transport (DfT) unit established to ensure the UK is at the forefront of testing and deploying connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs).

Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Blockchain: the next big thing for ITS? Really?
    October 8, 2018
    Everyone’s heard of blockchain – but most people are less sure about what it really is, and how it might be used in transportation. Andrew Williams peers into cyberspace to find some answers. A growing number of organisations in the ITS industry are exploring how blockchain technology could be used for ITS and mobility applications. So, what exactly is blockchain technology? What are the key current and potential applications in the mobility and ITS sector? And what practical benefits might it bring?
    Read More
  • New technology revolution in urban traffic control?
    January 26, 2012
    Urban traffic control is a well-defined and practised art. Nevertheless, there are technologies here and on the horizon with the potential to revolutionise how we do things. By Gavin Jackman and Andrew Kirkham, TRL, and Jason Barnes. Distributed monitoring and control of urban traffic networks and flows is nothing new. PC-based Urban Traffic Control (UTC) is now well established and operating in many locations around the world. However, it is worth considering the effects of the huge growth in the use of sm
    Read More
  • EU project to make urban freight management more sustainable
    February 1, 2012
    Urban freight policies are becoming more common in European cities and regions. However, it is still difficult to evaluate and transfer the knowledge gained from the different city logistics measures implemented by local authorities. The SUGAR project aims to tackle this by establishing a systematic approach towards best practices identification and assessment, and by developing urban freight plans and actions.
    Read More
  • Western Australia to trial autonomous vehicle
    February 11, 2016
    Western Australia is to trial a driverless and fully electric shuttle bus later this year. Developed by NAVYA SAS, a French company specialising in intelligent transport systems, the shuttle bus can transport up to 15 passengers and has a maximum speed of 45kmh with an average speed of 25kmh Announcing the trial, Transport Minister Dean Nalder said the Department of Transport was working closely with the RAC to ensure compliance with road and vehicle safety standards while they trialled an autonomous sh
    Read More

Highlighted Content