Business Secretary and Transport Minister launch VENTURER Driverless Car Trial

Business Secretary, Vince Cable and Transport Minister Clare Perry are launching the VENTURER consortium’s driverless car trial today (February 11), giving the project the go ahead to test autonomous vehicles in the real world.

The VENTURER consortium will be trialling autonomous vehicles in the Bristol and South Gloucestershire council areas to explore the feasibility of driverless cars on British roads. It will investigate the legal and insurance aspects of driverless cars and explore the public reaction to such vehicles.

VENTURER project lead and technology director for Atkins’ Highways & Transportation business, Lee Woodcock said:

 “This is an exciting time for the UK transport industry, driverless vehicles will bring about many benefits including reduced congestion, safer roads and access to mobility. This is new territory so over the next three years, the VENTURER consortium will look at what driverless vehicles could mean from a legal and insurance perspective as well as how these vehicles could impact on people’s behaviour and how the public might accept this new technology.”

Transport Minister Claire Perry said:

“Driverless cars are the future. I want the UK to be open-minded and embrace a technology that could transform our roads and open up a brand new route for global investment.

“I want the public to be comfortable that proper safeguards are in place and the Bristol trials will go a long way in helping us better understand the full implications of this exciting development.”

The VENTURER trial will run for 36 months. Testing of the consortium’s autonomous vehicle, the BAE Systems Wildcat on private and public roads is to begin in early 2016.

The Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson added:

“I am delighted to welcome the VENTURER consortium to Bristol during our year as European Green Capital. It is a mould breaking project that really captures the imagination. The consortium members represent a wealth of combined experience and it gives me great heart to see both transnational and local organisations collaborating in the spirit of innovation.

“For the city region to be hosting a project with such global significance is a great boon, and fits my offer of Bristol as a laboratory for urban change. Bristol’s innovative approach to the blending of technology with our complex urban structure for the benefit of its residents has already won international recognition from such organisations as the Rockefeller Foundation and at the Guangzhou International Awards for Urban Innovation.”

The VENTURER consortium consists of numerous organisations from across different sectors:

• Atkins: lead partner, providing project co-ordination, delivery and intelligent mobility expertise
• AXA UK: legal expertise  and insurance
• Bristol City Council and South Gloucestershire Council: local road network intelligence and access to public roads
• First Bus: as part of the work being done around driver assistance technologies, First will provide a bus as a means of data collection
• Fusion Processing: advanced sensor systems
• Williams Advanced Engineering (part of the same group as F1 Team Williams Martini Racing): driving simulator expertise
• Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England: research on public expectations, acceptance and response
• University of Bristol: car to infrastructure communications
• Bristol Robotics Lab, University of the West of England & University of Bristol: providing systems integration and decision-making algorithms and hosting the trial centre

The VENTURER trial is one of three projects being funded by Innovate UK to investigate how driverless vehicles could fit in with every-day life. The GATEway project aims to explore new forms of automated technology in Greenwich while the UK Autodrive project is being run in Milton Keynes and Coventry.