Heathrow’s shuttle pods will be adapted and tested as one of London’s first driverless vehicles this summer. The pods operate out of Terminal 5 and will be taken off the tracks and modified to work without tracks.
The pods that look like small train carriages will be used in trials of driverless cars in Greenwich as part of the Gateway project by TRL. (Transit Research Laboratory). Included in the consortium are Westfield Sportcars, Heathrow Enterprises, and Oxbotica. They will work together to fully convert the pods into driverless shuttles.
According to TRL the main focus of the trials is to assess the public’s willingness to use autonomous vehicles in built up areas.
Professor Nick Reed, academy director at TRL and technical director for Gateway, said: “The addition of three prominent and respected British organisations to the Gateway consortium further strengthens the UK’s position as a leader in autonomous technologies.
“Each company brings a great deal of experience to the project which will prove valuable in helping us to understand how the public and industry will adapt to the use of automated vehicles in the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab test environment in Greenwich.”
It will be very interesting to see whether or not Britons are ready for this leap into the future. It will be fascinating to see whether or not the average passenger is ready to trust a robot to drive them around. But if it takes off, it will herald a new era in driverless cars for the UK.
