UK is to become the most effective, connected and autonomous vehicle development ecosystem in the world, with the help of up to £30 million for projects with the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), Meridian Mobility and Innovate UK. Reportedly, businesses and research organisations can apply into 2 competitions that support the testing of connected and autonomous vehicles and progress their development.

The connected and autonomous vehicles sector offers potentially huge economic and social benefits; however, the government needs to make sure that safety, security and privacy do not get compromised. The industry will develop safe and efficient systems for moving goods and people around, thanks to the funding offered by the government.

The first competition offers up to £5 million for one project that supports the sharing and trading of data generated by infrastructure, connected or autonomous vehicles or other third parties. The proposed project must present a platform that offers easy access and is appropriate for users, as well as cope with increasing volumes of data and new data formats.

The second competition offers up to £25 million and it is for up to six projects for facilities to support the testing of connected and autonomous vehicles for highways, rural roads and parking. The government is looking for projects that cover one or more of these four themes: controlled test environments that represent highways and the common features of road junctions (funding goes to one facility); continuous public test environment, including highways and rural roads that connect to existing urban test sites (funding goes to one to two environments); controlled parking test environments that are realistic and representative of current and future infrastructure for automated parking (funding goes to one facility); and public parking test environments for autonomous vehicle parking.

All projects must be carried out in a specific geographical area that covers parts of the West Midlands through to the South East. Facilities may be located anywhere in this area including: Coventry, Royal Leamington Spa, Stratford-upon-Avon, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Luton, London, Reading, Croydon, Guildford.