Milton Keynes takes part in autonomous vehicle trial on public roads
A team from Ringway East Midlands Milton Keynes contract has taken part in the groundbreaking trial of autonomous vehicles on public UK roads.
Two Ringway trucks provided a rolling roadblock behind an autonomous Jaguar Land Rover vehicle being trialled on the city’s roads for the first time to ensure other highways users were not inconvenienced by the three days of tests.
They were joined by five Ringway Milton Keynes operatives, two supervisors and two additional Ringway traffic management vehicles, ensuring the pioneering trial runs smoothly.
The trial by UK Autodrive will run until Friday, when the autonomous vehicle will be tested, along with a demonstration of new technology allowing connected vehicles to share information about parking availability and provide an early warning to drivers when an emergency vehicle is approaching.
John Nicholson, Ringway Regional Director, said: “Milton Keynes is a centre of new technology and, as a company that embraces innovation, Ringway is delighted to be part of that.
“Not only do we want to facilitate UK Autodrive’s pioneering trial, but we want to learn ourselves about the opportunities that autonomous vehicles can offer to one day improve the services we provide our clients and, ultimately, the public.
“By providing traffic management during the three-day trial of autonomous and connected vehicles in Milton Keynes, we aim to cause minimal disruption in the short term, but bring maximum benefit to the city in the future.”
The trial of autonomous and connected vehicles is the latest pioneering project that Ringway Milton Keynes has been a part of.
The team has already joined forces with the UK Autodrive project to prepare the highways and redways for the planned implementation of 40 low-speed self-driving ‘pod’ vehicles in pedestrianised areas of Milton Keynes during the summer.
Ringway Milton Keynes has also fitted a network of more than 1,000 new intelligent sensors around the city which drivers will soon be able to use to receive real-time parking information to an app on their mobile phones.
