The Darwin Autonomous Shuttle service was originally launched in November 2021. For the last three and a half years, the little yellow shuttle has been a familiar sight at Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, making it the longest-running self-driving passenger service in the UK.
After driving itself around the campus for a total distance of almost 10,000 miles, the Darwin Autonomous Shuttle is now ready to begin serving other locations. On 20 May 2025, one of the two shuttles set off on its journey north to start a new life in Liverpool.
The shuttle project at Harwell has been a remarkable achievement, and it couldn’t have been achieved without the collaboration of many different organisations. Darwin Innovation Group is enormously grateful for the support of the European Space Agency, the UK Space Agency, Aviva, STFC, Virgin Media O2, Hispasat, AWS, Navya and, of course, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus itself.
Daniela Petrovic, Darwin’s co-founder, is looking forward to seeing the shuttle in a new setting, and she credits Harwell with making that possible. ‘We’re ready to operate in a busy port environment,’ she says, ‘and that is thanks to the experience we gained in Harwell. The campus has been an amazing host, and the shuttle’s training at Harwell has been crucial for its evolution into a mainstream service.’
In its years at the campus, the shuttle has informed Aviva’s development of insurance for self-driving vehicles, ventured into Oxford, inspired a children’s book and hosted a wide range of special guests, from an astronaut to a Blue Peter winner. It’s now arrived safely at the Port of Liverpool, and we’re excited to see all that it achieves in its new role there!
Darwin Innovation Group is a UK-based company that provides setup services for self-driving vehicles. If you’d like to know how we can help your organisation make use of autonomous vehicles, contact us. You can also follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.
