Hidden away behind the O2 in Greenwich, London is one of the
most important research and development programs into driverless vehicles. The Gateway
project has been designed to not only come up with a possible solution to
public transport but also to gauge how society feels about these vehicles in everyday
life.
Bloomberg via Getty Images unlike driverless cars, these pods
would act as a form of automated public transport, moving around the city
center providing mobility over short distances.
Developed and built in UK by Westfield sports cars, the pods
are a variation on the automated Ultra Global PRT pods that you might have seen
moving around Heathrow Airport.
Unlike Heathrow, the GATEway project sees these pods moving
freely along specially designed routes forcing them to interact with cyclists
and pedestrians. For the next month they will be transporting 5,000 members of
the public who have signed up to be part of the project.
Huff Post UK went out to Greenwich to see what it was like and
to spoke to Jim Hutchinson CEO of Fusion Processing which has created the
self-driving software for the pods themselves.
