Volvo continues autonomous driving onslaught with U.K. trial

Volvo has announced Britain's "largest and most ambitious" autonomous driving test will soon get underway in a bid to accelerate the introduction of driverless technology.

Set to launch next year, the trial stands out from others by putting real families inside self-driving vehicles on public roads, according to Volvo.

"Autonomous driving represents a leap forward in car safety," Hakan Samuelsson, Volvo Cars' president and CEO, said in a statement.

Dubbed 'Drive Me London,' the test will launch in early 2017 with "a limited number" of semi-autonomous vehicles before expanding to as many as 100 in 2018.

Volvo said sourcing data from everyday users in what it's calling Britain's "most extensive" autonomous driving pilot will allow the automaker to develop systems that are better suited to real-world driving conditions "rather than the more unrealistic conditions found on test tracks."

Independent research has revealed that autonomous driving has the potential to reduce the number of collisions by as much as 30 per cent, according to Volvo.

"Vehicle manufacturers are predicting that highly autonomous vehicles, capable of allowing the driver to drop 'out of the loop' for certain sections of their journey, will be available from around 2021," Peter Shaw, chief executive of Thatcham Research, Volvo's partner in the trial, said in the statement from Volvo.

"Research in the (United States) predicts that by 2035, as a result of autonomous and connected cars, crashes will be reduced by 80 per cent."

The automaker is working to develop autonomous driving systems as part of its commitment that no one will be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo by 2020.

The announcement of the trial in Britain comes just weeks after Volvo said it plans to launch China's "most advanced" autonomous driving experiment in the near future.