The fleet of autonomous prototype vehicles operated on public roads around the former Olympic Park in Stratford. Credit: DRIVEN

The DRIVEN consortium has announced that its fleet of autonomous prototype vehicles has successfully navigated streets in London, UK.

Fuelled by Oxbotica’s autonomous software, the vehicles operated on public roads around the former Olympic Park in Stratford.

The £13.6m DRIVEN programme, which is partly funded by the UK Government, demonstrated that these self-driving vehicles can safely and smoothly operate under real-life situations.

The autonomous vehicles operated in the presence of a safety driver in roads and traffic similar to London.

Minister of State at the Department for Transport George Freeman said: “Self-driving technology has the scope to revolutionise the way people travel, with potentially profound benefits for road safety, accessibility and convenience.

​“We want to drive the roll-out of self-driving vehicles and continue to support innovators developing this ground-breaking technology.

“The success of trials like Project DRIVEN underpin our Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy, highlighting our ongoing support for innovation, research and the trialling of exciting new technology, which cements our position as a global leader in this space.”

To address the challenges faced by self-driving cars, DRIVEN collaborated with experts from various fields such as local authority planning, insurance, cyber-security and data trading.

The experts came from different organisations such as Oxford Robotics Institute, Axa XL, Nominet, Telefonica, TRL, RACE, Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) and Transport for London (TfL).

Nominet and Axa XL developed situational risk management capabilities while ORI contributed its data trading algorithms.

O2 was responsible for ensuring safe and secure communications while OCC, TfL, RACE and TRL’s work helped achieved safe trials in different locations.

The consortium claimed that the project adhered to the DoT’s Code of Practice and TfL’s guidance for Connected and Autonomous Trials in London.