Currently, the length of roads open for safety testing intelligent connected vehicles (ICV) in China exceeds 5,000 km and the total distance of such tests surpassed 10 million km, said Guo Shougang, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), at a forum held in Beijing on March 25.
According to Guo, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) and MIIT have jointly conducted pilot projects in 16 cities, in order to promote the coordinated development of smart city infrastructure and ICV.
Beijing was among the first batch of cities used for the pilot projects. Kong Lei, deputy director of the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area (BDA) Administrative Committee, noted that Beijing began the construction of an internet-connected and cloud-control high -level autonomous driving demonstration zone in September 2020.
Phase 2.0 construction of the demonstration zone was basically completed, said Kong.
Within the 60 square kilometers of BDA, 332 digital intelligent intersections have been built. A city-level engineering test platform for high-level autonomous driving vehicles has also been constructed. The Internet-connected and cloud-control system has been primarily established to offer external services. The number of all kinds of autonomous driving vehicles for normal tests has reached around 300.
Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province, was also selected to conduct pilot projects in the first batch. The city designed China's first customized intelligent bus line, reducing the traveling time by 13.3 percent on average. In addition, the bus line's optimization rate of being on schedule during rush hours reached 80 percent.
"Such achievements fully proved that the pilot projects are valuable and on the right track," said Yang Hongyi, an official from MOHURD. Apart from making further use of the pilot projects platforms, he said the development of the pilot projects should also be guided by the need of cities and their residents.
Yang hopes to use the experience gained from the pilot projects and set standards for all over the country.