GATEway Driverless Transport

Funded by: Innovate UK and industry

Principal Investigator: Professor Dale Harrow

Collaborators: Transport Research Laboratory (project lead), Telefonica, RSA, Shell, Royal Borough of Greenwich, Digital Greenwich, Gobotix, Oxbotica, Westfield, Heathrow University of Greenwich, Imperial College London, Commonplace

In the history of vehicles, a new revolution is now following those of the internal combustion engine and mass production. It is autonomy: driverless cars, trucks and other transport. GATEway is an £8 million project funded by Innovate UK and Industry, led by the Transport Research Laboratory, investigating a range of issues around this revolution. 

The RCA is building a deep understanding of the impact on road users and wider society. It will inform the design of the vehicles themselves, the services they provide, and future city infrastructure. It has implications for industry – including the automotive, digital and telecoms industries – for government policy and for city and transport planning. 

The creative design research methods developed by the School of Design with the RCA Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design reveal more productive and expressive insights from the public than standard survey responses. Workshops with a wide range of potential users have discovered broadly positive attitudes to autonomous vehicles, including benefits they bring to non-drivers. Online survey and mapping tools developed by partner Commonplace increase the scale and reach of engagement. 

The RCA has created an exhibition and events at the London Transport Museum for Spring 2017, encouraging debate and eliciting visitors’ own ideas about the future. The project also feeds into the RCA’s new Intelligent Mobility Design Centre, a major research centre at Battersea funded by industry.

Find Out More

RCA-ledWorkshops to Help Envision the Future of Driverless Vehicles (news article)