Council’s bid for millions to develop driverless car testing
COVENTRY City Council is set to bid for tens of millions of pounds-worth of funding to help put the city at the forefront of driverless car testing on public roads.
The vehicles will soon be tested on city streets in Coventry as part of the UK Autodrive project, though it will be in a strictly controlled setting with a rolling roadblock in place.
A report going to cabinet on Tuesday reveals the city is working on an application to bid for funding as part of a £55million government-funded initiative being run by Innovate UK, which aims to make the UK one of the world’s most attractive centres for connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) development and testing.
Coventry could bid for as much as £17.5million of grant funding, which would need to be match funded, meaning there would be a total pot of £35million.
The cash would be used to construct and operate the testing infrastructure to allow connected and autonomous vehicles on public roads.
Any match funding would come from private sector partners rather than the council and the UK Autodrive project, which involves testing in Coventry and Milton Keynes, includes Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Motors and Ford.
The development of driverless cars involves the development of both autonomous and connected vehicle technology.
Connected vehicles are capable of ‘talking’ to each other and to roadside equipment like traffic lights using the wireless network to help inform the choice of routes to minimise congestion and pollution.
An autonomous vehicle takes this concept a step further by taking over aspects of the driving tasks, ultimately to the point of full automation, meaning a vehicle that is capable of driving itself without human intervention.
The report to cabinet states: “If a bid is successful it would place Coventry and the wider region at the centre of a national research and development programme into connected and self-driving vehicles of all types, making the city and region a global leader in this field.
“This would also further enhance Coventry’s growing reputation for advanced automotive research and engineering led by the city’s two universities and major local businesses such as Jaguar Land Rover.”
A requirement of the bid is that organisations must work together as part of a consortium which should be led by a business or research organisation rather than a local authority.”
Welcoming the move, Councillor Jim O’Boyle, cabinet member for jobs and regeneration, said: “At the heart of this is the fact that Coventry was the place which saw the birth of the British motor industry.
“In the development of connected and autonomous vehicle technology we have the skills and technology and want to be at the heart of this going forward.
“Later this year we will have driverless cars out on Coventry’s roads with a rolling roadblock as they want to do it in a real world environment as opposed to MIRA.
“If we get this funding we can then start to put real infrastructure on our roads.”