Bolton Council is committed to responding to the climate emergency as set out in our Climate Change Strategy. To succeed, we must address important issues and act collaboratively across our partnerships, businesses and communities in a way that delivers real change. The strategy makes commitments that align with what is happening on climate change globally, nationally, and regionally. These commitments support the Greater Manchester Five-Year Environment Plan, which aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2038\.   Our Climate Change Strategy has been brought together by the Bolton Vision Partnership and the people of Bolton, with a central purpose to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change and lessen the impact of our collective activities on the environment. However, we also know that action on climate change opens a host of additional opportunities and potential benefits. For example, utilisation of autonomous vehicles on popular routes not only helps to reduce carbon emissions, but also contributes to cleaner, healthier air.  The council is committed to working with Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) to reduce carbon emissions from transport and travel. The Greater Manchester 2040 Transport Strategy Delivery Plan promotes the "Right Mix" target of one million more sustainable journeys per day by 2040 with zero net growth in motor vehicle traffic. This relies on providing infrastructure that will allow increased active travel, greater use of public transport and a shift to electric vehicles.  The opportunity to benefit from a successful bid to access funding from Innovate UK's Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Grant would enable the Council to build on the preparatory work already undertaken by Aecom in 2018 and to put Bolton at the forefront of developing autonomous, sustainable, transport networks in the UK in partnership with TfGM, Costain and Dromos.  The CAM system developed by Dromos uses autonomous electrical vehicles for up to 2 adults (plus children, luggage, prams, bikes, or wheelchairs). The vehicles will operate on segregated infrastructure, providing safe travel and, given the extremely low vehicle weight (500kg as opposed to several hundred tons), the cost and space required are 50% lower compared to rail-based systems. In addition, construction time and travel time are also halved.  The CAM system at the heart of this feasibility study changes the way we think about public transport: the future is riding in comfort like using a taxi while paying the price for a bus ticket and using twenty-first century technology.

The project will study the feasibility of delivering a zero emission CAM system on a purpose-built route between Seaton Delaval Station on the new Northumberland Line and Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital (NSECH) in Cramlington. The Northumberland Line is a nationally important passenger rail project linking the rural areas of Northumberland to the employment and facilities of the county's main towns and the wider urban areas of Newcastle and North Tyneside. NSECH is a regionally important healthcare facility providing world-class care for critically ill and injured patients from across the northeast of England. Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust plan on developing the site to provide further services to patients, but a key barrier to their plans is the accessibility of the hospital site. Despite being less than 2km from the new rail station, NSECH has limited access by public transport -- only two buses an hour enter the hospital site to serve the circa 100,000 patients seen annually and the 2,000 staff that work within the hospital, and there are no dedicated cycle routes and only one pedestrian route in / out of the site. The new rail station does not propose any link to NSECH. The project will focus on the delivery of a CAM system on the land that separates the rail station and NSECH, and we have the benefit of the landowner supporting the study. We will compare this to the delivery of a 'traditional' mass transit public transport system in providing an accessible, low-carbon solution to the challenge of linking these two vital pieces of public infrastructure together. Newcastle University, using its experience of delivering and evaluating previous CAM schemes, will develop an understanding of the user-centric requirements such as service delivery and accessibility to understand what could make this a successful and useable PT solution and sustainable service for the hospital, its staff, patients and visitors The proposed Dromos system would see connected autonomous vehicles working both individually and as a 'train' along new, segregated infrastructure, offering a safe, direct, demand responsive and reliable public transport solution which could be delivered in a very short timeframe, yet with a level of privacy, accessibility and inclusion not possible through any other mode of transport on offer today.