RDM: The Midlands manufacturer hoping to reshape urban transport

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The West Midlands has long been home to some of the UK’s most innovative manufacturers. But one of the most interesting names to emerge in recent decades is Coventry engineering group RDM, which, over the past two decades, has established something of a name for itself as a key supply-chain partner for the automotive, aerospace, medical, rail and renewable sectors.

Most recently, the group has emerged as a major player in the UK’s driverless vehicle sector.

The firm cut its autonomous teeth in the LUTZ (Low Carbon Urban Transport Zone) Pathfinder project – an initiative led by the Transport Systems Catapult that saw it develop a number of two-seater driverless pod cars that are being used in one of the UK’s first public trials of fully autonomous vehicles. Even more recently, it unveiled a scaled-up version of the LUTZ pod, a four-seater autonomous vehicle named Pod Zero, a driverless pod specially designed for public spaces, which the firm is in the process of showcasing to interested parties around the world.