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I’m sitting in the future of transport. It’s slow, tentative and completely autonomous. Driverless car trials have finally reached the UK, in the form of two-seater “pods” zipping down pedestrianised streets in Milton Keynes.

The purple and white vehicles, designed by automotive firm RDM, look like a cross between a golf cart and a bubble. The doors open vertically, but from the inside it just looks like a regular automatic car hooked up to an iPad. It’s hard to tell that the car has been kitted out with the latest driverless control systems by Oxbotica, a spin-off company from the Oxford Mobile Robotics Group.

, a senior software engineer involved in the project, tells me he’s there to grab the steering wheel if something goes wrong. He taps the tablet a few times and off the pod goes.

“Does it have a stereo system?” I ask Wilcox. “No, not yet, but that would be good,” he says.

As the pod embarks, it accelerates up to speeds of 8 kilometres an hour (we are in a pedestrian zone) and an on-board computer controls the steering wheel to avoid hitting any obstacles. The pod has a variety of cameras and sensors, including radar and the laser-based equivalent, lidar, to collect information about its surroundings and figure out where it is in the pre-mapped environment.

Cars have the answers

It might not seem as sexy as Tesla or Google’s driverless car projects, but the trial demonstrates how most people are likely to first experience driverless cars: as a shared transit system in city centres.

“We’re ready for the public right now,” says , director of the Oxford Mobile Robotics Group. “I think you will see autonomous vehicles rolled out in places like Olympic parks or central cities pretty soon, but it’s going to be a while before you can go into a garage and buy a car without a steering wheel.”

Initially, 40 driverless pods will navigate the city’s 250-kilometre network of walkways and cycle paths with a select group of passengers from the public. Over the next few years, the same tech will be put on roads in Coventry, Greenwich and Bristol.

“We don’t see a difference between the road or the pavement,” says Newman. “The vehicles always have to ask the questions, ‘Where am I? What’s around me? And what should I do?’ And we make sure that the systems are in place so that the cars have the answers.”

The hope is that the pods can act like taxis. You will simply tell an app where you want to go – perhaps a trip to see the iconic Concrete Cows sculpture – then, seamlessly, a pod will pick you up and drive you to your destination.

Spotlight on safety

Similar tech is already appearing elsewhere. MIT spin-off company nuTonomy started testing driverless taxis in Singapore this summer, and Uber started field tests in Pittsburgh last month.

A few recent high-profile accidents have put the spotlight on the safety of self-driving cars, but Newman says the technology just needs some time to develop. Every year over a million people die from road accidents due to human error. Newman believes driverless cars can do better.

“There’s a whole class of errors that computers never make,” he says. “Self-driving cars never become inattentive, which is a big cause of human error.”

Another possible advantage of the system is environmental. The vehicle is electric; one aim of the project is to reduce congestion and emissions. There’s no worry about batteries running out – with a large enough fleet, a group of pods could charge up while the others are in service.

My test ride is a little bumpy and surprisingly creaky. As the pod pulls up to our destination, I suddenly feel a little underwhelmed. The journey was like almost any other that I’ve taken – but that is, perhaps, the point.