Harlander

About the project

Belfast is a city alive with entrepreneurial spirit, ambition and optimism, poised for an exciting economic future with untapped investment opportunities.

The Belfast Innovation District, within the Belfast Harbour estate, in particular has an enormous potential for growth, creating jobs and helping build an innovation eco-system for the latest research by our universities and ultimately bringing in investment into areas such as Engineering, Cybersecurity, GreenTech and HealthTech, which are some of the Government’s key strategic themes for the Future Economy.

But a significant obstacle to the development of the estate is the lack of public transport and the congestion of its road network due to the use of private vehicles, which causes travel disruptions and has a detrimental environmental impact. Electrified Connected and Automated Vehicles offer a route to provide a clean, efficient and affordable public transport that aligns with net-zero targets and can provide last-mile connectivity to other transport modalities such as rail, air and maritime.

The Harlander project will establish an automated passenger shuttle service from the Titanic Quarter railway station to Thompson Dock, Queens Island, transporting residents, tourists and business employees to destinations including Titanic Museum, Catalyst Innovation Centre, Belfast Metropolitan College and Queens University.

It will establish the UK’s first operationally-ready and commercially viable deployment of a fully automated shuttle service on mixed-use public roads. The service will utilise a ground-breaking, multi-purpose automated vehicle that enables a cost-effective scaling of passenger services and introduction of goods service. Belfast Harbour’s advanced communication and traffic infrastructure will also be upgraded to support the technology.

Safety and security by design will be ensured by an innovative cyber-security solution providing the highest level of integrity for safety-critical communications to and from the vehicle. New digital solutions will be developed, including a Managed Service Deck (MSD), a Vehicle Security Operation Centre (VSOC), along with safety and governance guidelines.

The project will showcase the UK’s leadership in automated technology, providing an attractive, affordable, reliable, secure, safe, sustainable and scalable passenger service.

The project also aligns with the Government’s ‘Levelling Up’ agenda by promoting growth in the regions, which is much needed as transport infrastructure spending per capita is three times less in Northern Ireland than in London.

Public acceptance will be investigated as part of the wider integration with existing public transportation offerings, helping to understand any challenges and to identify opportunities to address these challenges.

 Project partners

• ANGOKA
• BT
• HORIBA MIRA
• EVersum,
• Translink,
• Oxbotica
• Burges-Salmon
• Yunex
• Ulster University