UK government funding to boost self-driving transport technologies

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Up to £150 million of funding to 2030 to support the UK’s position among world leaders in self-driving technologies.

Last week, the Government announced £150 million investment for Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) to 2030.  This landmark funding package forms a part of the Advanced Manufacturing Plan, which sets out government’s plans for investing in the future of manufacturing, opening markets, and removing obstacles for business.

This Government funding for CAM will be matched by industry and enable the UK’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) to cement the UK’s place among world leaders for designing, developing, deploying, and manufacturing self-driving technologies, products, and services.

CCAV is working to create an early commercial market and secure first mover advantage in the deployment of self-driving vehicles and services, building on around £600 million of joint investment with industry in over 100 projects across the UK since 2015.

The latest research suggests the economic benefits of CAM for the UK could be £66 billion per year and 342,000 additional jobs by 2040 if government intervenes appropriately in policy, regulation, funding (de-risking globally mobile investment), skills, and public communication.

This funding will boost the UK’s development and implementation of CAM, transforming how we get around, making journeys safer, more convenient, and more accessible while also creating highly skilled jobs and helping to grow the UK economy.

As announced in the King’s Speech on Tuesday 7 November, government’s new Automated Vehicles (AV) Bill will deliver one of the most comprehensive legal frameworks of its kind, anywhere in the world, for self-driving vehicles with safety and innovation at its core.

This funding, complemented by enabling legislation, is crucial for a UK CAM sector that is broader than privately owned vehicles and robo-taxis, and includes the logistics, mass transit, mining, agriculture, and defence sectors.

This programme will focus on the highest potential economic and societal impact opportunities for the UK in the early commercialisation of these technologies, whilst also ensuring these are safe and secure for all. It will target market segments and capabilities for which the UK currently has comparative and/or competitive advantage, or where targeted investment could achieve such advantage in the global value chain.

CCAV will also consider the need for a Centre of Excellence for UK Connected and Automated Mobility to work with departments and organisations, focussing on coordination challenges and to strengthen the capabilities, skills, and public engagement. The Centre will work closely with Government to support SME access to finance, international engagement, and exports.

Oxa CEO Gavin Jackson, said: “The financial injection the Advanced Manufacturing Plan will deliver into the UK’s self-driving vehicle industry is a fantastic vote of confidence in the work Oxa and the wider autonomous mobility community has been doing. Ministers clearly see the value of self-driving technology – not only in terms of helping to revolutionise the way we travel in the UK, with increased safety and sustainability and additional people-moving capacity – but in the sector’s ability to create a whole new export opportunity based on UK ingenuity.”

“I am particularly excited to see the Government call out self-driving mass transit schemes as it speaks to Oxa’s focus on shuttle services. We see autonomous shuttling as the quickest and best long-term benefit that self-driving technology can deliver as the benefits will be felt from city to countryside, warehouse to airport apron and far beyond,” Jackson added.