UK bus and rail company FirstGroup has started testing driverless vehicles at a major US test facility.

The company’s First Transit division, which runs transport services for businesses, will be working on driverless ‘pods’, as it dubs them, at the 2,000-hectare GoMentum test facility in Concord, California.

The project includes the second phase of a pilot it started late last year, which will involve putting the first commercially operated autonomous vehicle on public roads in the US. This is being carried out at a functioning office park and while members of the public are not yet using the transport, the company said that is “very much the goal”.

Brad Thomas, president of First Transit, said the vehicles it was currently testing would be used for what he called “first and last mile solutions”, operating in places where it is difficult for buses to do so, such as in space-constricted shopping centres, universities, airports and large office parks.