HORIBA MIRA Begins Work on the UK’s First Connected Road Test Environment

News > HORIBA MIRA Begins Work on the UK’s First Connected Road Test Environment

HORIBA MIRA Ltd. – a leading independent provider of engineering consultancy, R&D and testing in the field of Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) – has begun working on a collaborative project to create one of the world’s most advanced environments for CAV technologies in the UK, following a successful application for funding from government’s £100 million Intelligent Mobility Fund.

HORIBA MIRA Begins Work on the UKs First Connected Road Test Environment

The UK Connected Intelligent Transport Environment (UK CITE) consortium – made up of MIRA and nine other consortium members – is a major project totalling £7.1m, which includes investment from Innovate UK. The project, which begins today, will enable automotive, infrastructure and service provider companies to trial connected vehicle technology, infrastructure and services in real-life conditions. The connected environment will be on 40 miles of roads within Coventry and Warwickshire, and will seek to understand how the technology can improve journeys, reduce traffic congestion and provide in-vehicle entertainment and safety services through better connectivity.

MIRA is leading the simulation and modelling activities for the project, which will predict how these technologies influence journeys and inform future deployment strategies to optimise socio-economic benefits. Critical to the deployment of these technologies is to ensure that they are safe and secure. In support of this, MIRA will be performing pre-deployment trials at its world-leading connected environment facilities on its Proving Ground, and producing cyber security guidelines.

Chris Reeves, Commercial Manager, Future Transport Technologies and Intelligent Mobility at HORIBA MIRA, said:

“This project will help pave the way for the development and deployment of connected autonomous vehicles in the UK, and we’re delighted to be able to support the development of both the CAV simulation and modelling tools and the necessary cyber security requirements.

“Clearly, the safety and security of these technologies are paramount, and we are proud to be at the cutting edge of ensuring this is the case. CAV technologies are a major wealth creation and inward investment opportunity for the UK and this project is a major step forward to ensure we are at the forefront.”

UK CITE is made up of a number of consortium partners within the automotive, infrastructure and service companies, is jointly led by Visteon Engineering Services Limited and Jaguar Land Rover and includes Coventry City Council, Coventry University, Highways England Company Ltd, HORIBA MIRA, Huawei Technologies (UK) Ltd, Siemens, Vodafone Group Services Ltd, and WMG at University of Warwick. The UK CITE project will create the UK’s first fully connected infrastructure on public roads using a combination of wireless technologies, which can enable real-world testing in a safe and managed way.

The Intelligent Mobility fund, which has been established to accelerate research and development in connected and autonomous vehicle technologies, is administered by the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and delivered by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.