Through the Commercialising Connector project Alexander Dennis is introducing full SAE Level 4 capability to its Enviro100AEV and Enviro200AEV self-driving buses. Grant funding provided by the UK Government will allow a project coalition led by the Greater Cambridge Partnership to build on the success of the Connector programme, which has already seen three Alexander Dennis Enviro100AEV introduced to a route serving the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
Commercialising Connector has been awarded £3.88 million of grant funding as part of the UK Government’s £150 million CAM Pathfinder programme, delivered by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade in partnership with Zenzic and Innovate UK. The funding boost will allow the current services to be extended and test how self-driving buses can move from trial projects to real-world public transport services. Furthermore it is stated that it will help to gather further evidence about the customer experience, ticketing, and how safety and accessibility can be ensured. Alexander Dennis and technology partner Fusion Processing Ltd will upgrade one of the existing Enviro100AEV, owned by Mistral Group and operated by Whippet, with dual redundant actuator technology to achieve full SAE Level 4 capability.
A larger Enviro200AEV electric single-decker, equipped to the same standard, will also join the fleet. Commercialising Connector will also look at how self-driving buses could be used on Cambridgeshire’s planned busways, with a trial set to take place on the southern section of the existing guided busway. Jamie Wilson, Head of Concepts & Advanced Engineering for Alexander Dennis, said: “With the help of this latest UK Government funding, we will be able to deliver the most advanced self-driving buses in the country yet and develop them into a commercial proposition that can enhance and complement real-world bus services.” Commercialising Connector is led by the Greater Cambridge Partnership and includes project partners Alexander Dennis, Fusion Processing, Anthrometric, Whippet and Ticketer.