Driverless cars will be tested in four UK cities from January 2015: London, Bristol, Milton Keynes and Coventry
Driverless cars could be coming to a road near you.
Four UK cities have been chosen to test out driverless cars, according to an announcement by public body Innovate UK.
Greenwich in South East London will have one project, as well as Bristol while Milton Keynes and Coventry will share one. The trials will last between 18 and 36 months starting in January 2015.
Autonomous cars will receive an extra £9m in government funding, in addition to the £10m which was announced earlier this year.
Chancellor George Osborne did not mention the extra funding in today's speech, but it was outlined in the Autumn Statement documents.
Nick Jones, lead technologist for the low carbon vehicle innovation platform at Innovate UK, said:
Cars that drive themselves would represent the most significant transformation in road travel since the introduction of the internal combustion engine and at Innovate UK, we want to help the UK to lead the world in making that happen.
There are so many new and exciting technologies that can come together to make driverless cars a reality, but it’s vital that trials are carried out safely, that the public have confidence in that technology and we learn everything we can through the trials so that legal, regulation and protection issues don’t get in the way in the future.
It follows a government announcement earlier this year, where ministers said that driverless cars could be used on public roads as early as January next year. To-date, they have only been allowed to operate on private roads in the UK.