Driverless car trial begins in London: Bromley and Croydon allow five autonomous vehicles to roam streets day and night to test car-share service

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London has opened its doors to driverless cars.

'Supervised tests' of autonomous vehicles have been given the green light as part of steps towards the launch of a new service where Londoners can be chauffeured around the capital by artificial intelligence.

The trials, taking place day and night, is being conducted in Bromley and Croydon using Ford Mondeos converted to self-driving cars by UK-based firm FiveAI.

Driverless trial begins: FiveAI has five of these blue Ford Mondeos driving around Bromley and Croydon as part of tests to see if the UK firm can launch an autonomous car-sharing service

The tests are the latest phase in its plans to eventually roll out an autonomous, car-sharing service in London.

The cars will have a trained safety driver in the seat monitoring the performance of the vehicles - and taking over control if a crash looks imminent - ahead of plans to roll-out passenger trials next year.

FiveAI has already began collecting data for the trial, with sensor-enabled cars roaming London's roads last year to allow the software to learn the web of streets - something it takes cabbies between two and four years to process as part of The Knowledge. 

The scheme has been given the go-ahead by Bromley and Croydon councils and been signed off by Transport for London, which wants to be ahead of the game when it comes to future mobility that could reduce the number of people using their own dirty cars in the capital.

FiveAI says its autonomous car service should help reduce congestion, emissions, incidents and the cost and time of journeys in London - which will be music to the ears of Mayor Sadiq Khan. 

The company's co-founder and chief executive Stan Boland said: 'Safety and trusted partnerships are crucial to everything we do.

'We'll continue to keep residents informed along the way, working closely with the London Boroughs and TfL.'

FiveAI says its autonomous car-share service should help reduce congestion, emissions, crashes and the cost and time of journeys in London

In 2017, FiveAI was part of a consortium that was awarded a grant of more than £12million by the Government to develop software for an autonomous car system, a project known as StreetWise.

Future of mobility minister Jesse Norman said the Government was keen on seeing self-driving cars on UK roads and backed the London trial.

'The long term potential for self-driving vehicles is huge – to improve road safety, tackle loneliness and isolation and create economic opportunity,' he said.

'So I welcome the safe testing of this new technology. But increasingly self-driving cars are just one of many innovations we are likely to see on our roads. 

'The Government's new Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy sets out how it will plan for their introduction.'