london-gatewayGoogle might have been under the spotlight for quite some time now where their driverless cars are concerned for various reasons, but this does not mean that they have a monopoly over what could very well be the future. In fact, London’s very first driverless vehicles have been revealed, where they are set to undergo testing over in Greenwich later this summer. These rides will be part of the £8 million Gateway project that is headed by the Transport Research Laboratory.

Not exactly driverless cars that will see action on the road at first, these Gateway rides are actually Heathrow Airport shuttle pods which will be adapted later on, so that they will be roadworthy – and ferry passengers to their destination without missing a beat (hopefully). These will be electric-powered pods, and they look like rather cramped automated train carriages, and you can check them out at the Terminal 5 in Heathrow Airport.

They can even function without the need for dedicated tracks, making deployment a whole lot easier, according to the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). British firms such as Westfield Sportscars, Heathrow Enterprises and Oxbotica will come together so that a full transformation of these pods will happen, and will be test piloted in due time this summer.

Filed in Transportation.. Source: selondonchamber.org

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