Driverless vehicles: connected and autonomous technologies
How government is supporting research, development and demonstration of connected and autonomous vehicles, such as driverless cars.
About connected and autonomous vehicles
Connected and autonomous vehicles incorporate a range of different technologies, facilitating the safe, efficient movement of people and goods.
Increased connectivity allows vehicles to communicate with their surrounding environment. This provides valuable information to the driver about road, traffic and weather conditions.
Vehicles with increasing levels of automation will use information from on-board sensors and systems to understand their global position and local environment. This enables them to operate with little or no human input (be driverless) for some, or all, of the journey.
Testing connected and autonomous vehicles in the UK
The UK is one of the best countries for car makers and others to develop and test these technologies because of our:
- permissive regulations
- thriving automotive sector
- excellent research base and innovation infrastructure
Government activity
The government supports the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of connected and autonomous vehicles. This includes:
- announcing the 4 cities driverless car projects to take place in Bristol, Coventry, Greenwich and Milton Keynes
- publishing the Department for Transport’s (DfT) code of practice for testing driverless cars
- launching the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), formerly BIS, £20 million feasibility studies and collaborative research and development competition, the winners of which were announced in February 2016
- establishing the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) to help ensure that the UK remains a world leader in developing and testing connected and autonomous vehicles by:
- leading innovating policy development in this sector
- delivering a programme of research, development, demonstration, and deployment activity, worth up to £200 million, through Innovate UK
- providing co-ordination across DfT, BEIS and the rest of government
- being the single contact point for stakeholder engagement
- publishing a call for evidence on the UK’s testing ecosystem for connected and autonomous vehicles
- launching a consultation on advanced driver assistance systems and automated vehicle technologies
- launching the BEIS £30 million collaborative research and development and feasibility study competition
Find out more about government funded CAV research and development projects:
Contact the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV)
You can contact CCAV by emailing: enquiries@ccav.gov.uk.
Follow us @ccavgovuk.
Guidance and policies
Consultations
Research
Updates to this page
Last updated 11 April 2017 + show all updates
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Added announcement of £109m funding for driverless and low carbon projects.
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Autonomous vehicle research.
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Consultation on the use of automated vehicle technologies and advanced driver assistance systems in the UK.
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Added call for evidence on driverless vehicle testing facilities.
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Added information about another research and development competition to be launched later in the year.
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First published.