Trials of connected and driverless cars are to move onto UK streets by the end of this year as the UK Autodrive consortium completes its final set of private test track demonstrations.

Manufacturers including Ford are undertaking extensive tests of autonomous driving features.

This week saw a number of connected and autonomous vehicle trials carried out by project partners Jaguar Land Rover, Ford and Tata Motors European Technical Centre at the Horiba Mira Proving Ground in Nuneaton as part of the 16-member, publicly funded £20m project.

Joint demonstrations were held of three out of seven connected car features being trialled during the three-year programme. This included the crossroads collision warning technology – which uses connected car technology to detect other connected vehicles and warn of possible collisions – as well as a system that warns cars of approaching blue light vehicles and their direction to help emergency services reach their destination quicker.

The trials also saw in-vehicle traffic information technology showcased, which provides notifications of traffic information from roadside units to help ensure drivers receive important notifications.

And Jaguar Land Rover also used the event to demonstrate its ‘Autonomous Urban Drive’ driverless technology, with an automated Range Rover Sport showcasing its ability to navigate around an urban-style road network.

Following the completion of the proving ground demonstrations, the first set of public road trials will take place in Milton Keynes and Coventry by the end of this year, initially on segregated sections of roads, before evolving into open road trials and demonstrations as the project draws to a close in summer 2018.

A fleet of up to 40 self-driving pavement-based ‘pod’ vehicles will also be introduced in pedestrianised sections of central Milton Keynes as a separate part of the project.

Tim Armitage, Arup’s UK Autodrive project director, said: “Once the technology becomes widely available, we anticipate huge potential benefits in terms of road safety, improved traffic flow and general access to transport, so we’re really excited about being able to demonstrate this on real roads.”