At this year’s Rail and Road Summit organised by local MP Amber Rudd, we were shown a vision of the future with a short talk by Professor Nick Reed from the Transport Research Laboratory about how driverless car are currently being trialled at Greenwich.
Driverless cars can run on a preset route and will stop if there is an obstruction in the way as they have sensors on the front bumper bar – and the ones in Greenwich in south London can hold up to six seated passengers.
Could you imagine this as the future in Rye? Gibbet’s Marsh car park is free and the driverless cars pick up passengers at the car park and bring them into town with preset stops at the supermarket, High Street and Strand Quay. It sounds pie in the sky now, but in 15 years time maybe.
Remember the first smart phones only appeared in the 1990s and most of us use them now.
We were able to see one of the Greenwich experiment’s vehicles (pictured above) outside Hastings station and the college where the summit was held.
Photo: Ray Prewer