| Project Launch
200+
The number of
wireless access
points in the Smart
Mobility Living Lab,
including 40+ V2X
units
March/April 2020 Traffic Technology International 013
www.TrafficTechnologyToday.com
In the UK capital a new test bed has become the first in Europe
to conduct on-road autonomous vehicle tests with members of
the public, and will soon make its facilities available for the opendata
testing of CAVs and mobility services. Tom Stone reports
Anew connected and autonomous
vehicle (CAV) test bed is taking shape
on the streets of southeast London.
The Smart Mobility Living Lab in
Woolwich has conducted Europe’s first
on-road CAV trial involving members of the
public and by the end of March 2020 is due to
have its facilities available for any organisation
wanting to test CAV technology in a real-world
environment – subject to an approval process.
The test bed grew out of a need to fulfill one of
the objectives that was set at the start of the UK’s
government-funded AV testing journey. The
Gateway project, which began in 2013 in nearby
Greenwich, piloted autonomous shuttles near
the Millennium Dome. One of the key stated
objectives was to create an environment to test
CAVs and new mobility services. This was a big
ask for Gateway, limited as it was to pedestrian
areas, and so, with its sights firmly set on
fulfilling early promises, lead researchers at
TRL, and its partners, began planning London’s
Smart Mobility Living Lab.
Traffic Technology International was able to get a
seat in one of the lab’s first test cars in December,
Above: A regular
production
Nissan has been
instrumented to run
autonomously on
the London test bed
and recently spoke to Richard Cuerden, director
of the TRL Academy about how the project is
taking shape and his ambitions for its future.
“I’m really proud that this is Europe’s first
public on-road trial, and that we’re doing it
using open source AV software,” says Cuerden.
Herein lies one of the key principles of the
project – to enhance development of AVs
through open architecture, enabling software
developers to load their code onto test vehicles
for validation. So, while more advanced vehicles
undoubtedly exist, few, if any, can be said to be
building a cooperative community in the same
way the ones in the Living Lab are. “It’s allowing
us to get real insights into the nature of the data
that these vehicles collect and see how much of it
they use and how well they use it,” says Cuerden.
At the side of the road
“We’ve got over 24km of roads, fully
instrumented with cameras and sensors and
5G solutions,” says Cuerden. “You can run any
vehicle around these roads and monitor it. That’s
very interesting if you’ve got an AV and you’re
looking at your onboard data. You can verify it
We’ve got over
24km of roads,
fully instrumented with
cameras and sensors
and 5G solutions
Richard Cuerden, director,
TRL Academy
CAV first in London
/www.TrafficTechnologyToday.com