Driverless cars will be soon observed in expressways of the Chinese capital Beijing, as the municipal authority has allowed the gradual opening of several expressway sections for unmanned vehicles.
A 10-km expressway between the city’s fifth and sixth ring roads will be initially started for this purpose. Six other expressway sections will be started later to add another 143-km stretch to the city’s high-speed testing roads for driverless vehicles.
Testing vehicles should be geared up with relevant devices and connected to a cloud platform for real-time data transmission to make sure that the safety of expressway passage is there.
Presently, the city has 226 routes for testing self-driving vehicles, totaling about 752.4 km, according to Beijing Innovation Center for Mobility Intelligent (BICMI).
The city has issued temporary car plates to 99 vehicles from 15 companies including regional companies Baidu and DiDi Chuxing. Among these companies, Chinese autonomous vehicle startups Pony.ai, and Baidu have gained permits to test their driverless cars with passengers outside China.
In terms of the number of companies registering for self-driving road tests, total unmanned vehicles, and the mileage of such road tests, Beijing ranks first in China, according to the BICMI.
