Chongqing- Recently, the pilot project on the autonomous driving application of the Western (Chongqing) Science City was selected as the first batch of intelligent transportation application pilot projects (autonomous driving and intelligent shipping) of China's Ministry of Transport. At the same time, its operating mileage has reached 10,000 kilometers recently.

Relying on the completed vehicle-road coordination facilities, the project will pilot the autonomous commuting shuttle service and self-driving street sweepers in the Western (Chongqing) Science City.

The smart bus station in the Western (Chongqing) Science City. (Photo provided to iChongqing)

The pilot project will deploy ten self-driving buses to meet the travel needs of enterprises and citizens in the surrounding areas and four self-driving street sweepers to realize automatic operation in partition and time-sharing.

Furthermore, one autonomous driving operation supervision platform will be constructed to supervise autonomous driving vehicles and intelligent roadside equipment.

This project will be complete by the end of 2023, driving technology to benefit citizens. Soon, a city-level demonstration of autonomous driving with business models that combine different scenarios will be built in Chongqing Science City.

The self-driving bus in the Western (Chongqing) Science City. (Photo provided to iChongqing)

Under epidemic prevention and control, self-driving street sweepers can realize non-contact sanitation and lower the risk of sanitation work.

A factory has tested the self-driving street sweepers dispatching system for four months, with the mileage reaching 500 kilometers and a maximum operating speed of 1.5 meters per second.

At present, the pilot project has also launched the self-driving commuting connection service and constructed a 5.4-kilometer demonstration loop line. It conducted corresponding tests and application demonstrations, and the operating mileage reached 10,000 kilometers.

The pilot project has obtained seven test licenses, and two L4-level autonomous vehicles were put into use, completing about 5,000 shuttle services.

Level 4 vehicles can operate in self-driving mode and do not require human interaction in most circumstances. But until legislation and infrastructure evolve, they can only do so within a limited area.

This pilot project aims to benefit the public with autonomous driving technology, achieve the optimal match between public travel capacity and scattered travel needs in the demonstration area, and improve the travel experience of citizens.

(Zhu Qinzhuo, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)