The future of mobility took center stage in London earlier this week, as global leaders in connected and automated mobility (CAM) came together to drive innovation, tackle key challenges and accelerate the rollout of self-driving technology.
The CAM Innovators’ Day, delivered by Zenzic and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), attracted a capacity audience at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) on Wednesday, March 12. The audience included nine overseas delegations and key leaders and innovators from government, industry and academia.
A series of keynote speeches and panel discussions covered a variety of topics such as: how CAM aligns with net zero ambitions, including a session with the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC); legislative changes; the role of government-funded projects; and how local authorities are leading the demand for CAM.
“The energy and enthusiasm at CAM Innovators’ Day underscored the incredible momentum in the sector,” said Mark Cracknell, programme director at Zenzic. “With government, industry and academia working together, the UK is poised to lead the self-driving revolution. Connected and automated mobility isn’t just about technology — it’s about transforming lives. From safer roads to smarter cities, the innovations showcased today will shape the future of transportation.”
CAM covers a wide range of areas of transportation of both people and goods, including self-driving vehicles, smart traffic management and vehicles communicating with each other and infrastructure.
The technology provides opportunities to deliver improvements to road safety, reduced congestion, improved reliability and accessibility to transportation services, and increased productivity.
“The UK is at the forefront of autonomous mobility, and events like this ensure we continue to foster collaboration, drive investment and turn vision into reality,” added Cracknell. “Local authorities play a crucial role in CAM adoption. By integrating self-driving technologies into our transport networks, we can create safer, more efficient and more sustainable cities.”
The conference highlighted the progress and innovation that has happened within the sector over recent years, including real-world use cases. It also brought into focus other important topics such as, how to ensure the innovative work done so far has real commercial potential; the need to balance long-term ambitions with more immediate opportunities to prove viability; and the impact of the AV bill on the rollout of CAM technologies.
Speaking at the event, Jim Hutchinson CEO at Fusion Processing, said, “Increasing productivity is also one of the key drivers of automation and in many sectors it can provide solutions to skills shortages. Equally, our CAVForth project gave us 90,000 miles’ worth of autonomous running data, which we were able to compare against manual driving and it showed a 7% improvement on fuel efficiency which is a huge operational saving and can have a big impact on the environmental credentials of the technology. We expect our CAVstar automated drive system to provide even bigger gains in urban area operations.”
Zenzic was created by government and industry to champion the CAM ecosystem and lead the UK in accelerating the self-driving revolution.