Skip to main content

UK consortium awarded funding to develop autonomous vehicles

The StreetWise consortium, headed by UK artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), start-up has been awarded US$16.4 million (£12.8 million) in grant support for its US$29.5 million (£23 million) project. Awarded as part of the UK government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles CAV2 competition, the grant will enable the consortium to develop and demonstrate autonomous transport in London, with the aim of launching a supervised trial of an autonomous vehicle fleet in the third quarter
April 24, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
The StreetWise consortium, headed by UK artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), start-up has been awarded US$16.4 million (£12.8 million) in grant support for its US$29.5 million (£23 million) project.


Awarded as part of the UK government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles CAV2 competition, the grant will enable the consortium to develop and demonstrate autonomous transport in London, with the aim of launching a supervised trial of an autonomous vehicle fleet in the third quarter of 2019.

The StreetWise project aims to show that the technology is now sufficiently mature to be safe in urban environments and sufficiently intelligent to co-exist with human drivers, road users and pedestrians. It also plans to demonstrate how this technology can be used to reduce commuting costs, cut accident rates, reduce congestion and cut emissions.

The core aims of the project are to develop the autonomous vehicle technology, develop user interfaces, define and price the service, establish viable vehicle management and maintenance processes, attain (provisional) regulatory approval for that service and insure and operate it to a pre-commercial (TRL5) level.

The project will be delivered by a consortium led by FiveAI working in collaboration with the 7333 University of Oxford, the Transport Research Laboratory, 1466 Transport for London and automotive personal insurance provider 4236 Direct Line Group.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • USDoT pilots show win-win potential for connected vehicles
    December 19, 2017
    Pete Goldin discovers the state of play with connected vehicles trials in the US and the impact of Hurricane Irma on Tampa’s pilot. The US Department of Transportation’s (USDoT’s) connected vehicle (CV) pilot sites have moved into phase 2 of the deployment programme– design, build, test and, maybe most importantly, collaborate.
  • Improving the positional accuracy of GNSS road user charging
    July 23, 2012
    The European GINA project is intended to address and overcome many of the institutional, technical and public acceptance hurdles currently faced by satellite-based road user charging schemes. Dave Tindall and Denis Naberezhnykh, TRL, and Laure Dezes, ERF, write. Pay-as-you-drive Road User Charging (RUC), whereby demand (or congestion) is managed by applying appropriate tariffs in order to encourage drivers to make their journeys at less busy times, on less congested routes or even on different modes, could
  • London’s mayor launches fund to help retire polluting diesel taxis
    July 28, 2017
    In the latest in a series of measures to clean up London’s toxic air, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and Transport for London (TfL) have launched a US£55 million (£42 million) fund to encourage the owners of the oldest, most polluting diesel black cabs to retire them from the Capital’s fleet. Taxis are a significant contributor to London’s toxic air quality, and are responsible for 16 per cent of NOx and 26 per cent of Particulate Matter (PM) road transport emissions in central London. From today, the own
  • Safe-driver training reduces costs, increases safety
    February 3, 2012
    Hermes, one of Europe's leading home delivery specialists, and part of the Otto group's European logistics division, estimates that introducing a range of safe-driving measures in its UK operations have contributed to a US$1.5 million cost saving to the business in the 12 months to April 2010.