A new test facility on the MIRA Technology Park will create a controlled set of realistic parking environments specifically designed for connected and automated vehicles. This matters because parking inefficiency is a major contributor to urban congestion worldwide. As cities grow denser, the time and fuel wasted searching for spaces adds to traffic jams and emissions. Current autonomous vehicle technology struggles with the complexity of real-world parking—tight spaces, moving pedestrians, and unpredictable human drivers. The Park-IT facility fills a gap by offering a dedicated, flexible space where developers can test parking solutions under increasingly complex scenarios, from simple bays to challenging urban layouts. If successful, the facility will accelerate the development of safe, reliable automated parking systems. This could reduce congestion in city centres, improve traffic flow, and boost consumer confidence in autonomous vehicles. A digital twin of the physical site will allow engineers to run parking scenarios in simulation before testing them in the real world, speeding up development while maintaining safety. The project is a core component of the UK’s broader ecosystem for commercialising connected and autonomous vehicle technologies.
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Public description of project Please describe your project. This description will be published only if your project is subsequently funded by the Agri-Tech Catalyst to comply with government requirements. Providing this summary is mandatory but the text will not be assessed. Please ensure it is suitable for public disclosure. Funding will not be provided to successful projects without this. Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) will bring huge benefits to society by improving safety, efficiency and convenience of the road transport network. This transformation is opening huge commercial opportunities but is not without major technical challenges. To turn this opportunity into reality the UK is creating an eco-system, led by Meridian Mobility, to accelerate the development, deployment and commercialisation of CAV technologies and Park-IT will be a core component of this ecosystem. One of the major issues facing road transportation globally is ever increasing urbanisation and the resultant congestion, a major contributor to this congestion is parking efficiency. CAV and the associated technologies and the move towards Mobility as a Service present a major opportunity to solve this parking challenge. Park-IT, a collaboration between HORIBA MIRA and Coventry University’s Insitute for Future Transport and Cities and in partnership with Meridian and the CAV Testbed UK ecosystem will create a bespoke and realistic, controlled set of parking environments on the MIRA Technology Park to test and support the development of current and future connected and automated parking solutions. Park-IT will be a flexible allowing increasing complexity of use cases for parking scenarios. The facility will be supported by a ‘digital twin’ so users can create and run parking scenarios using simulation techniques in the virtual world. The facility will ensure these CAV technologies are safe and secure, ensuring consumer confidence in the resultant products.
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