Funding to prepare road networks for future vehicles

A funding competition has opened for organisations to find ways to prepare the the road network for future low carbon, connected, and autonomous vehicles.

Working with Innovate UK, Highways England has up to £20 million for UK organisations with projects to change the way UK roads are designed, managed and used.

There are two parallel competitions for feasibility studies for ideas that are unproven and at a low technology readiness level, and one for projects that have already been proven.

In both competitions, projects should tackle the transport challenges in Highways England’s Connecting the country: planning for the longer term plans.

A project can focus on different types of road or road use, and be either location-specific or generic, so long as it is applicable to Highways England’s strategic road network. They can cover the safety of connected and autonomous vehicles, improving mobility for road users, and air quality.

There is £8 million for the feasibility studies competition. This is across two phases and will be split across the six themes.

The first phase has up to £2 million for up to 20 projects to evidence and determine the feasibility of an idea.

In phase 2, the most promising projects from the first phase can get funding to develop and evaluate a prototype. A total of £6 million will be available.
Competition information

The competition opens on 11 February 2019, and the deadline for registrations is at midday on 1 May 2019.