slow and steady. When it comes to autonomous vehicles on the streets of the city, it is a approach to most countries of the world.
But on Tuesday, the UK announced that it would lay a cautious leg on the pedal, when the Transport Department said it would speed up the plan to operate self-driving cars on public roads in limited pilot programs starting next year’s spring. The British government initially planned to open its roads for self-driving vehicles after more than a year in the second half of 2027.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told Wired in an interview, “We can see that this technique offers a large scale economic opportunities.” The department estimates that the autonomous vehicle industry will generate 38,000 jobs and will generate 42 billion pounds ($ 57 million US) for the country by 2035. The secretaries also cite better and more efficient travel options and road safety as a motivator behind the country’s new schedule. She says, “We know how difficult companies are working on safety issues, and we do not want to wait for this technique to develop ahead.”
Transport Department spokesman Marco Barbato says that the pilot phase of the country’s autonomous vehicle deployment will include a limited number of vehicles, and the government will spend about one year to study the production data of those vehicles. The government aims to allow companies to fully launch autonomous taxi services in the second half of 2027.
Nevertheless, UK government officials say they will give priority to security. Alexander says, “We will not allow this technique to be deployed on our streets until we believe that really rigorous safety tests have been completed,” Alexander says.
Major transport players were ready to take advantage of the government’s announcement. British autonomous vehicle developer Wave and US Ride-Hil veteran Uber said on Tuesday that they would be partners to avail the new scheme of the government by launching autonomous vehicle tests on the streets of London.
London will be a difficult place to operate self-driving cars, called Wave CEO and Kofounder Alex Kendall. “It’s not Phoenix, Arizona-This is not a grid-like city in the desert where the sun always shines,” they say. , They say that the launching service in London will help prove how its autonomous technology can be “scalable and reliable”. Kendall refused to say that when Uber and Wave can start their service.