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Cambridge vision includes self-driving buses and metro

Greater Cambridge Partnership cam transportGreater Cambridge Partnership
The plans include self-driving shuttles using busway tracks

Self-driving buses and an underground metro should be part of the vision for a city's future public transport system, a conference has heard.

The Greater Cambridge Partnership revealed plans for "autonomous shuttles" on existing busway tracks and an underground metro.

Chairman Lewis Herbert said it would create a "world class public transport system" for the city.

An announcement on funding for the metro is expected in March.

Greater Cambridge Partnership cam transportGreater Cambridge Partnership
The underground would connect the city's high employment areas
Greater Cambridge Partnership cam transportGreater Cambridge Partnership
Underground station stops would emerge in the city centre

The conference for the partnership - which is made up of key decision makers from across Cambridgeshire - were told an undergound transport system would bypass the city's busy streets and be a link to places such as the emerging biomedical centre, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The metro is a long-running ambition of James Palmer, mayor of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, who wants it to run as far as Haverhill, Mildenhall, Huntingdon and Cambourne.

Greater Cambridge Partnership cam transportGreater Cambridge Partnership
The underground could use existing guided busway tracks

The city's busy cycle infrastructure would also be improved in a bid to get more cars off the road and improve air quality, the conference heard.

Mr Herbert, who is also leader of Cambridge City Council, said improvements would "accelerate the delivery of 33,500 new homes and 44,000 new jobs in Greater Cambridge."