With the begining in the next year Volvo will test auotnomous driving technologies on bristish public roads. The trial will serve to speed up the introduction of promising technologies into daily use to reduce car accidents and free up congested roads.
Instead of professionals the experiment, dubbed "Drive me London" by Volvo, will feature ordinary drivers and famillies, which will use autonomous cars for their everyday comuting. It should provide researchers with more acurate data then when driving on sterile test tracks. The experiment will begin in early 2017 and will be expanded in 2018 to include more than 100 autonomous drive cars.
Researchers expect autonomous drive will make benefits in four main areas: safety, congestion, pollution and time saving. According to the independent research autonomous drive has potential to significantly reduce car accidents, in some cases up to 30 per cent. It is very important for the future since up to 90 per cent of traffic accidents are caused by drivers.