Cov-made self-driving vehicles ready to take to the streets
COVENTRY-MADE selfdriving vehicles which will form part of the biggest autonomous vehicle trials in the UK are ready to roll.
Ten ‘Pod Zero’ vehicles made by Aurrigo, a division of RDM Group , have arrived in Milton Keynes, where they will soon be taking to the pavements and streets of the town.
The pods are being used in the next stage of the UK Autodrive project and engineers at Aurrigo, based on the Bilton Road Industrial Estate in Humber Avenue, Stoke, have been working through the night to build them.
The round-the-clock schedule was required to in order to meet the requirements for what is currently the largest ‘first and last mile’ transport trial in the world.
Ten pods have been finished and are being fine-tuned for their autonomous control systems before they will form part of a ‘whale’ (the collective name that has been given to the fleet of pods) that could be doing up to 120km of journeys every day.
Dr Richard Fairchild, director of autonomous mobility programmes at Aurrigo, said: “This is another major milestone for UK Autodrive and our country’s desire to be at the forefront of new transport solutions.
“Importantly, it is also a massive breakthrough for our business, as we now not only have the autonomous technology in place, we also have a production line capable of being ramped-up to deliver pods in low and medium volumes.”
Mr Fairchild added: “We have been testing the first two vehicles around Milton Keynes and there have been plenty of interested onlookers asking us questions, some of which were a lot more technical than we expected.
“Having a whale of pods to test will deliver the data and user experience we need to turn this project from a trial into an everyday part of Milton Keynes life.”
Aurrigo has invested heavily in the development of a control centre in Milton Keynes town centre and has recruited the first three people to support the roll-out as part of what will eventually be a ten-strong team.
This will enable Aurrigo to safely and effectively oversee the testing before it goes live with passengers in the summer. That is when up to 40 pods - capable of travelling up to 15 miles per hour and travelling up to 60 miles on one charge will operate from Central Station to Campbell Park and Silbury Boulevard to Avebury Boulevard.
Mr Fairchild said: “We want to get people talking about driverless vehicles as a possible solution for the first and last mile part of the journey. The more pods people start seeing, the more the conversation will gather pace.”
UK Autodrive, which is funded by Innovate UK, is a three-year project trialling the use of connected and self-driving vehicles on the streets of Milton Keynes and Coventry.