The test area covers 20 square kilometers, with more than 100 kilometers of city roads.
Chinese tech giant Baidu and Pony.ai, a self-driving startup backed by Toyota Motor and Nio, have been given the go-ahead in Beijing to conduct driverless tests on designated public roads without safety officers in the vehicles.
On October 15, the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone in Beijing’s Economic and Technological Development Zone officially opened its unmanned test scenes, with Baidu and Pony.ai being the only first two companies to receive permission to start testing here.
The test area covers 20 square kilometers, with more than 100 kilometers of city roads. The companies were asked to avoid the morning and evening rush hours while conducting tests here and to post prominent unmanned test signs on their vehicle bodies.
The companies are testing here in three phases, with the first requiring a staff member in the passenger seat, the second requiring a staff member in the rear seat and the third requiring the operator to have a remote monitoring presence outside the vehicle.
Baidu was allowed to put 10 vehicles to the test and Pony.ai was allowed to put five.
Beijing has had open road testing for more than three years, but before that it was all about the main driver-carrying test.
In April last year, the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone was approved and construction began in April this year, and the country’s first autonomous driving night and special weather testing qualifications were issued to companies including Baidu Apollo.
Subsequently, Baidu Apollo opened the nighttime autonomous driving demonstration operation in the area for the public.
In June 2021, Beijing issued 10 Phase II unmanned road test licenses to Baidu Apollo.
Beijing officials previously said that the city will try to gradually withdraw the safety officer from the self-driving vehicle, and that in cases where the unmanned operation has proven that the vehicle is safe, accident-free and meets certain standards, the safety officer will first move from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat, then to the back row, and finally withdraw from the vehicle.
So far, Beijing’s autonomous driving has opened 200 test roads, 699.58 kilometers, and the safety test mileage exceeded 3 million kilometers.
Baidu Apollo launches self-driving routes in Beijing’s Tongzhou District
