Volvo world-first public pilot for driverless cars

Whether you welcome or deplore the idea of self-driving cars, they're on the way. And Volvo wants to be in the lead when the technology arrives in showrooms. The Swedish brand is starting a pilot project that will see 100 driverless cars on the streets by 2017.

The project -- called Drive Me -- will roll out next year in the large Swedish city of Gothenburg, putting 100 residents in the cars and letting them travel on about 50 of the main roads in the area.

Onboard radar and camera systems will integrate with GPS and cloud data to keep the cars on track, and to have them park without anybody in the vehicle. However the driver will still need to get their hands back on the wheel to cope with pedestrian traffic. If the vehicle senses an imminent collision and the driver fails to retake control, it will automatically brake to a stop.

But while they're not at the stage of drivers being able to settle back with a newspaper or DVD for the morning commute just yet, Volvo says that should be possible by 2017 on some roads -- with continuing technology advances during the project.

Volvo and the pilot partners, the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish Transport Agency, Lindholmen Science Park and the City of Gothenburg, will use research from the project to judge infrastructure requirements for autonomous driving, which traffic situations benefit from driverless cars, how drivers interact with them -- and buyer confidence in them.

Volvo is not alone in the driverless car field, with Google have sent one across the US, and Mercedes-Benz saying its new S-Class would be capable of autonomy if the legal groundwork and road infrastructure was in place.

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This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott