Ballymena-based Wrightbus and Queen’s University are members of a consortium which has won funding to help develop autonomous buses. The grant is part of a government scheme which has awarded grants of up to £250,000 to self-driving feasibility studies, reports the BBC.

Other projects include studies into autonomous freight vehicles and driverless shuttle operations across NHS sites.

Limited self-driving bus experiments have already been carried out in several cities around the UK, including the Harlander, a self-driving minibus which operated on a short route in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter.

The Wrightbus feasibility study is not aimed at getting a fully self-driving vehicle on the road immediately. It will take a “phased, evidence-driven approach to test what works” and use that to make it safer and easier to introduce self-driving passenger services in the future.

Dr Andy Harris, head of research and data analytics at Wrightbus, said it was about developing a “credible, commercial business case for the future of autonomous public transport”.

(Picture: Wrightbus)