Volvo to launch UK autonomous driving trial

Swedish car maker Volvo Cars is to begin an ambitious autonomous driving trial next year to speed up the introduction of a technology that promises to massively reduce car accidents as well as free up congested roads and save drivers valuable time. The company is pioneering the development of autonomous driving systems globally as part of its commitment that no one will be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo by the year 2020. The test will be called Drive Me London and will differentiate itself from
April 28, 2016 Read time: 2 mins

Swedish car maker 7192 Volvo Cars is to begin an ambitious autonomous driving trial next year to speed up the introduction of a technology that promises to massively reduce car accidents as well as free up congested roads and save drivers valuable time.

The company is pioneering the development of autonomous driving systems globally as part of its commitment that no one will be seriously injured or killed in a new 609 Volvo by the year 2020.

The test will be called Drive Me London and will differentiate itself from other autonomous driving programmes by using real families driving autonomous cars on public roads.
 
Volvo will source its data from these everyday users and use this data to develop autonomous cars that are suitable for real world driving conditions, rather than the more unrealistic conditions found on test tracks. Thatcham Research will be providing the technical data analysis and any professional test drivers needed as part of the trial.

Drive Me London will begin in early 2017 with a limited number of semi-autonomous driving cars and expand in 2018 to include up to 100 autonomous cars and is expected to be the largest and most extensive autonomous driving testing programme on Britain’s streets.

“Autonomous driving represents a leap forward in car safety,” said Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive. “The sooner autonomous cars are on the roads, the sooner lives will start being saved.”
 

“Vehicle manufacturers are predicting that highly autonomous vehicles, capable of allowing the driver to drop ‘out of the loop’ for certain sections of their journey, will be available from around 2021,” said Peter Shaw, chief executive at Thatcham Research.
 
“There are multiple benefits to AD cars,” said Mr Samuelsson. “That is why governments globally need to put in place the legislation and infrastructure to allow autonomous cars onto the streets as soon as possible. The car industry cannot do it all by itself. We need governmental help.”

Location Based Systems

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • UK motorists ‘relax attitudes’ on distracted driving
    September 15, 2016
    Research for the RAC’s Report on Motoring 2016 has revealed that for some, attitudes towards handheld mobile use have worryingly relaxed over the last two years. The proportion of people who feel it is acceptable to take a quick call on a handheld phone has doubled from seven per cent in 2014 to 14 per cent in 2016 and the percentage of drivers who feel it is safe to check social media on their phone when in stationary traffic, either at traffic lights or in congestion, has increased from 14 per cent in
    Read More
  • Partnerships with Japan, EU Accelerate ITS Development
    December 3, 2012
    According to the Transportation Research Board ITS Committee, international cooperation between the United States, Japan, and the European Union (EU) is helping accelerate the research and development of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) standards and technologies by fostering collaboration between professionals on three continents. "Through international cooperation, we're able to learn from each other more quickly and with less expense than if we were working on our own," said Jane Lappin, chair of
    Read More
  • Transport in the round
    October 13, 2015
    The ITF’s Mary Crass tells Colin Sowman why future transport demands will require governments to overcome the silo effect of individual single-modal authorities. The only global multimodal transport policy organisation,” is how Mary Crass describes the International Transport Forum (ITF), which is housed at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As head of policy and summit preparation at the ITF she says: “All other organisations are either regional or have a modal focus, we cove
    Read More
  • Counting the environmental costs of ITS deployment
    October 29, 2015
    David Crawford looks at the latest thinking about calculating the benefits associated with the environmental side of ITS schemes. The penny is dropping that some environmental costs “are being shifted outside the traditional bounds of evaluation methods” for ITS-based road transport projects, according to researchers at the UK University of Leeds’ Institute for Transport Studies.
    Read More

Highlighted Content