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An Aecom-led consortium has secured at least 拢4.2m of funding from Innovate UK, the government鈥檚 funding-for-innovation body, and the Centre for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles to deliver a pilot scheme for driverless vehicles.

The pilot project includes the design, development and testing of new autonomous and connected pods on-demand (Pods), culminating in on-road public trials at London鈥檚 Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Comprising 20 partnering organisations, the Aecom-led Capri consortium brings together academic institutions, businesses, SMEs and public sector authorities.

Aecom said the project would include the development of the next generation of Pods, as well as the systems and technologies that will allow the vehicles to navigate safely and seamlessly in both pedestrian and road environments.

The project includes four trials, with the first on private land at Filton Airfield near Bristol aiming to test and validate the performance of the new generation Pods. The second trial will test a public service in a shopping centre car park to assess performance in busy pedestrian areas.

The final two trials will be at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, a large and diverse estate that includes retail, recreation, residential and business centres.

The project will apply 鈥榓ccidentology鈥� analysis to Pods to identify potential causes of accidents that will require testing and evaluation in the real-world, while using state-of-the-art techniques to simulate other scenarios, reducing the need for real-world testing.

The consortium will also undertake a system-wide cyber-physical security analysis to identify how to protect the Pod systems from being compromised.

Lee Street, director & head of technology services 鈥� Europe, Aecom, said: 鈥淐onnected and autonomous mobility services could potentially be used across a wide range of markets from airports and hospitals to business parks, shopping and tourist centres so there are clear economic and service benefits to this pilot.鈥�