In 2015 the government established the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) to make the UK one of the world’s premier development locations for connected and automated vehicles.
The joint policy team with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Department for Transport (DfT) works closely with industry, academia and regulators with a current focus on three areas:
Regulation – ensuring a welcoming regulatory framework to keep the UK at the forefront of real-world testing, and using automated vehicle technology, led by the world-leading Code of Practice which supports testing on any UK public road.
Research and Development – £150 million collaborative R&D grants for developing cutting edge technologies including the ongoing £25 million CAV4 competition
Testing Infrastructure – £100 million match funded grants to develop a world leading testing ecosystem that’s easy to access, including the ongoing £30m Meridian Mobility 2 & 3 competitions (£5 million CAV data exchange and £25 million autonomous highways, rural, and parking).
This month CCAV published UK Connected & Autonomous Vehicle Research and Development Projects 2018 a detailed look at the £120 million invested thus far in more than 70 collaborative projects.
CCAV works closely with Meridian to support the evolution of the UK’s development ecosystem and has so far committed more than £51 million matched by collaborative funding in four infrastructure projects to create a national testbed capability, with a further £30 million available through the current collaborative funding competitions, Meridian Mobility 2 and Meridian Mobility 3, which close on 5 September 2018.
CCAV celebrated its birthday with royal assent for the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act which extends compulsory motor vehicle insurance to cover the use of automated vehicles in automated mode. As a result, victims (including the ‘driver’) of an accident caused by a fault in the automated vehicle itself will be covered by compulsory insurance. The insurer would be initially liable to pay compensation to any victim, including to the driver who had legitimately handed control to the vehicle. The insurer then would have the right to recover costs from the liable party under existing common and product law.