Londoners can sign up to try driverless cars in Greenwich

LONDON -- Londoners can now register for the UK's first public trial of driverless vehicles, which is due to take place in Greenwich later this year. 

With the £8 million ($11.48 million) GATEway project, members of the public will have a chance to ride in autonomous vehicles, be invited to share their experience and take part in workshops and discuss the future of automated vehicles. 

“The move to automated vehicles is probably the most significant change in transport since the transition from horse drawn carriages to motorised vehicles," Professor Nick Reed, Director at TRL and Technical Lead of the GATEway project, said in a statement. 

"Testing these vehicles in a living environment, like the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab, takes the concept from fiction to reality. It gives the public a chance to experience what it’s like to ride in an automated vehicle and to make their own mind up as to how much they like it, trust it and could accept it as a service in the city.”

GATEway is one of three of three driverless projects funded by Innovate UK that will investigate and research driverless cars in the the country. The experiment will feature electric automated shuttle pods that will drive among pedestrians and cyclists in the London's Greenwich area.

Next year, Volvo is starting a scheme that will see 100 families being driven around by driverless cars in London. 

Described as "UK's most ambitious autonomous driving trial," the Drive Me scheme will kick off with a limited number of semi-automatic cars taking to the streets of the capital early next year.

The plan will then be extended in 2018 to up to 100 vehicles. 

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