Robotaxis are one step closer to reality – and to eliminating traffic lights in the process
17 February 2023
Following the success of a pivotal UK project, experts are predicting that autonomous taxis could render traffic lights obsolete.
Autonomous taxis could soon join fleets in cities across the UK after a blueprint infrastructure was created by a major national research project.
ServCity, funded by the Government’s £100m Intelligent Mobility Fund and administered by the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), was delivered by Innovate UK over the past three years.
Six project partners – the University of Nottingham, Nissan, Connected Places Catapult, TRL, Hitachi Europe and SBD Automotive – have been working to understand how to help cities get CAV-ready and successfully incorporate autonomous vehicle technologies into complex urban environments. This will help to deliver “Robotaxi” style services and create a template for the type of infrastructure required to support these technologies.
Professor Gary Burnett, Chair of Transport Human Factors from the Human Factors Research Group at the University of Nottingham, said: “Using innovative virtual reality (VR) and field observation methodologies, we have focused on the inclusive design of interfaces for vehicle occupants and other road users, which deliver a positive user experience in the absence of a human driver.
“Accessibility has been at the forefront of our research, with contributions from a wide range of potential stakeholders to inform all stages of our work. We have also examined human factors considerations for remote operators who might contribute to the user experience from afar.”
Robert Bateman, who manages ServCity for Nissan, said there have been significant differences in London’s trials compared with those in the US and Japan.
“With London, there’s more pedestrian interactions and crossings,” he explained. “In Japan, everybody follows the rules. Not so in the UK. This is why Nissan has decided to do this research work here in the UK.
“Quite frankly, if you can get it right here you can then deliver an autonomous vehicle anywhere in the world.”
Built upon a 100 percent electric Nissan LEAF, a series of increasingly challenging validation trials have been completed in the real-world environment of TRL’s Smart Mobility Living Lab (SMLL). This enabled ServCity to leverage the testbed’s full capabilities to create a futuristic cooperative infrastructure environment that sends data to the CAV to improve its situational awareness – for example, alerting it to the intention of an unseen bus stop ahead.
At the heart of ServCity is the aim to prove that autonomous technology can provide a truly people-centric mobility service, and what road infrastructure adjustments will enable the best user experience possible.
Two self-driving electric cars built by Nissan have completed hundreds of laps around a 2.7-mile route featuring busy A roads in Woolwich, south-east London during the past two years. So far, the cars have covered more than 1,600 miles during testing, with no accidents, according to the project’s leaders.
Addressing prevalent safety concerns in the discussion around self-driving vehicles, Robert Bateman insisted the cars are actually safer than those with a human driver in front of the wheel.
He said: “The car is looking 360 degrees around it. That’s the autonomous vehicle system’s only job. It’s not eating a sandwich. It’s not texting. It’s not thinking [about] what it’s going to be doing at work.
“It is 100 percent safer.”
Expanding on the work undertaken to ensure the safety of these vehicles, Nick Blake, Chief Innovation Strategist at Hitachi Europe, added: “The ServCity project has allowed us to further develop the essential technologies needed for urban driving, such as the ability to make safe decisions based on advanced situational awareness, and robust localisation in urban canyons – where GPS signals may not be reliable.
“We’ve made massive strides in the past three years, and we will continue to participate in the autonomous driving revolution.”
Often cited as a key obstacle to wider adoption, the project is an important step towards giving people the confidence that CAVs are safe to introduce onto UK roads, with the conclusion of the project being celebrated with a series of demonstrations where people were able to experience the technology for themselves.
In addition, the project leaders predict that autonomous cars could not only have a positive effect on road safety, but they could also revolutionise transport infrastructure, even potentially making traffic lights obsolete. Smart Mobility Living Lab (SMLL) Engineer Thomas Tompkin told the PA Agency, "If we think about maybe 20 or 30 years time, can you start to then think about the infrastructure outside?
"Can you start to remove some of that infrastructure, such as traffic signals?
"Obviously, there's a lot of work to be done before that ever takes place. But that's where you can start to see a seismic shift in the way our roads are laid out."
For more information, please visit https://www.servcity.co.uk/.