The Future of Driverless Mobility in the Midlands

INSIGHT – Envisioning Urban Mobility

INSIGHT, an all British sector-leading consortium of Westfield Sportscars, Birmingham City University, Creative

Example, Fusion Processing, Conigital Group and Heathrow Enterprises will establish the UK at the forefront of

driverless vehicle technology (Autonomous Vehicles) and ensure there is an appropriate regime for testing

driverless vehicles in the UK with a particular emphasis on the mobility requirements of blind & visually

impaired users.

INSIGHT will focus on safety, reliability and integration of autonomous systems in a complex city centre

environment. Westfield Sportscars (A 100% British Sportscar Manufacturer based in the Midlands) will build

and modify existing Heathrow Ultra-pod vehicle to incorporate state-of-art 3D imaging and localisation sensors

for navigation and collision avoidance developed by Fusion Processing. Other unique features include

implementation of world’s first 4D tactile display to be developed by the Conigital Group, provide continuous

sensory feedback for blind users of their entire journey. In addition, the pod will be at the forefront of IoT

(internet of Things) gathering vital environmental data such as temperature, humidly, CO2 and NoX to provide

a real-time heat map of pollution levels in the city centre.

Advanced indoor and outdoor positioning systems will not only provide information on the exact location for a

blind person on their smartphone but this app will also link to a cloud-based pod management system to be

created by Creative Example to a virtual-hail facility for calling a pod to the nearest location to the user.

Birmingham City University will compile detailed safety case for the operation of the autonomous pods and

coordinate the public trials in particular with select user groups such as the Blind and visually impaired citizens

in the city centre working in close collaboration with Birmingham City Council.

Julian Turner, CEO Westfield Sportscars commented, “The UK is in an excellent position to become a world

leader in this field. It will reduce congestion on our roads and help the environment in the process by lowering

emissions. It will lead to the generation of new opportunities and highly skilled jobs across the country

keeping the UK at the forefront of this technology. The INSIGHT project will provide public confidence that

proper safeguards are in place for the citizens and road users alike and the trials will go a long way to

understand the needs of the range of users of this exciting means of mobility. We are pleased that Westfield's

100% British Supply Chain will be providing the components for this project and Westfield will become the

UK’s leading supplier of Autonomous Shuttles. Heathrow’s Ultra POD has clocked up 3 Million Kilometres

serving over 1.5 million passengers – it is natural fit for Westfield to use its Electric Road and Race Car

Vehicle technology and merge it with the Heathrow Ultra POD."

Umar Daraz, Birmingham City University said “We are witnessing the start of the next automotive revolution in

the region that will place the city at the forefront of this technological revolution opening new opportunities

for our economy, society and engineers of the future. Driverless vehicles for mobility of all of our citizens will

become a reality in the very near future and this project represents a major milestone in realising that vision.”

Steve Chambers, Director of Engineering and Asset Management at Heathrow said: “The Heathrow POD’s

environmentally friendly technology has already allowed us to remove 70,000 bus journeys and 100 tonnes of

CO2 per year from Heathrow roads. We’re excited to see how our partnership with INSIGHT will push this

technology to the next level and make driverless technology a reality.”

ENDS