ServCity, the UK’s latest autonomous mobility service research project, launched this month to help cities harness autonomous vehicle technologies and incorporate them into a complex urban environment.

ServCity is jointly funded by government and industry; the government’s £100m Intelligent Mobility fund is administered by the Centre for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and delivered by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.

Over 30 months, five partners – Nissan, the Connected Places Catapult, TRL, Hitachi and the University of Nottingham – will work together to develop a blueprint that directly tackles the barriers to deploying autonomous vehicles in UK cities.

ServCity leverages the experience and expertise acquired though the HumanDrive project. Completed in February this year, this project tackled autonomous driving on countryside and motorway lanes, overcoming challenges such as roundabout and high speed country lanes with no marking, white lines or kerbs.

“If society is to enjoy the benefits of self-driving vehicles, we need to ensure the technology can safely master a complex and lively modern city, with all its obstacles,” said Nadhim Zahawi, the UK’s business and industry minister. “This project, backed by government funding, will not only help make autonomous vehicles more user friendly, but also give users confidence that they can respond quickly and safely and to all types of challenges they face on the roads.”

Completed with a 100% electric Nissan Leaf, it was finalised with Grand Drive, the UK’s longest and most complex autonomous drive from Cranfield to Sunderland. Data and learning gathered during HumanDrive represent a tremendous help in the completion of the new venture.

“We are extremely proud to be a part of the ServCity project and are excited to trial our 100% electric Nissan Leaf as test vehicles,” said Bob Bateman, project manager from Nissan. “Our Nissan Intelligent Mobility strategy strives to achieve a mobility future that is more electric, more autonomous and more connected and we look forward to working in collaboration with ServCity’s other partners to achieve this.”

Through a combination of test simulation, end-user experience research and real-world trials, ServCity will inform how cities can exploit the potential of future mobility and accelerate deployment. Concentrating on the three key areas of technology, people and scalability, ServCity aims to ensure the user experience is as intuitive, inclusive and engaging as possible.

“The Connected Places Catapult supports organisations in harnessing emerging technologies and developing new services,” said Edward Mayo, programme manager from the Connected Places Catapult. “ServCity is a perfect example of how we can use this approach to deploy autonomous vehicles on a wide scale to achieve the aim of intelligent mobility and improve the movement of both people and goods.”

Lucien Linders, general manager of TRL, added: “As world leaders in creating the future of transport, TRL is committed to developing safe systems that are available to everyone. Through using the infrastructure and monitoring facilities at our Smart Mobility Living Lab in London, we are uniquely placed to analyse the performance and benefits of automated mobility services in a complex city environment. We are proud to be offering our expertise to this ground-breaking ServCity project.”

And Nick Blake, chief innovation strategist from Hitachi, said: “The team at Hitachi’s European research and development is focused on tackling the complex technical challenges involved in autonomous driving in congested urban environments. Our role in the ServCity project will include developing the technology behind predicting – and safely responding to – other moving objects such as pedestrians, cyclists and cars, as well as delivering accurate and robust localisation.”

At the University of Nottingham, Gary Burnett is chair of transport human factors at the Human Factors Research Group. He said: “Our team brings significant expertise in conducting and analysing user studies to evaluate human-computer interactions. We are excited by our role as part of ServCity to generate theories, models and methods behind the user experience of the vehicle occupants. To this end, we will ensure that the design and development of the autonomous vehicle service is user-centred and truly meets consumer needs.”

And Andrew Hart, director of SBD Automotive, added: “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. SBD is proud to be a part of the ServCity project, bringing our decades of hands-on experience from working with car makers to help define and test different approaches to delivering a seamless Robotaxi experience.”