The U.K. government has announced that it will let driverless cars on public roads starting January 2015.
Use of such vehicles was previously permitted by Britain's Department of Transport on private roads, but this is first time they have been allowed to be used on public roads, CNET reported. Business Secretary Vince Cable and Transport Minister Claire Perry announced Wednesday that trails will be held in three cities in January, and changes might be made to the Highway Code to let self-driving cars on public streets.
Self-driving cars are able to operate without anyone behind the wheel thanks to a GPS that guides them on their route, while cameras and sensors give the vehicle awareness of objects and other cars in the vicinity.
The Department of Transport originally looked to trail these vehicles on public roads by the end of 2013, but the cars have been restricted to private roads because of concerns about legal and insurance problems, BBC News reported.
Other countries, however, have already approved of the use of autonomous vehicle on public roads. In the U.S., tests of the cars have been approved in California, Florida, and Nevada, and Google has already taken its driverless car for a test drive covering over 300,000 miles in California. Nissan held the first public road test in Japan in 2013 for a driverless car on the highway. Volvo was given permission to test 1,000 driverless cars in Gothenburg, Sweden starting 2017.
The goal for the tests is to start with cars that can be driven by the owner and switched to autonomous mode, CNET reported. These cars will come with a steering wheel and pedals, unlike Google's cars and other fully autonomous vehicles.
Cities in the U.K. that want to host one of the trials must make their interest official before the beginning of October, BBC News reported. The tests are set to run between 18 and 36 months, and the cost will be covered by a 10 million-pound fund, which will be divided between the three winners.
Civil servants must publish a review of road regulations by the end of the year. The review will focus on two areas: the way the rules should apply to cars in which the driver can take over at short notice, and the way they should apply to cars without a driver.
