Greenwich streets provide autonomous mobility real-world urban testbed

ServCity, a government-funded research project geared around developing autonomous mobility services, such as robotaxis, has started trials on public roads in London.

Centred around the Smart Mobility Living Lab in Greenwich, this next phase for the project will use the ServCity autonomous vehicle – a modified Nissan Leaf – to investigate how to incorporate autonomous vehicle technologies within complex urban environments.

Through a combination of test simulation, end-user experience research and real-world trials the six partners – Nissan, TRL, Hitachi Europe, the University of Nottingham, SBD Automotive and UK government agency Connected Places Catapult – will explore making autonomous vehicles more “intuitive, inclusive and engaging”, while also giving users confidence in the technology.

TRL’s Smart Mobility Living Lab General Manager Lucien Linders says, “Smart Mobility Living Lab is a real-world urban testbed whose roadside sensor infrastructure and facilities support the development process for CAVs to acquire better shared situational awareness. As the flagship urban test facility, we are uniquely placed to test and trial future mobility services in preparation for their commercial deployment.”

Andrew Hart, Director of SBD Automotive adds, “Robotaxis have the potential to fundamentally transform mobility for both consumers and the cities they operate in. The user experience lies at the heart of that transformation, as operators will need to carefully balance customer expectations with real-world technological constraints.”

This project is backed by government and industry through the £100m Intelligent Mobility fund, administered by the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and delivered by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.