Today (April 13th), Beijing Intelligent Networked Automobile Policy Pioneer Zone was officially announced. In the future, in the pioneer area, unmanned taxis will try commercial operation, and six expressways and urban expressways, including Daxing Airport Expressway, will welcome unmanned vehicles to test on the road.
Kong Lei, member of the Working Committee of Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone and deputy director of the Management Committee, revealed that it is expected that in June this year, the implementation rules for the test management of driverless vehicles are expected to be announced, and the safety officers in driverless taxis plan to withdraw vehicles one after another this year to achieve "unmanned" driving.
At present, there are many unmanned vehicles in Beijing Economic Development Zone for testing. Beijing News reporter Li Muyi photo
Detailed rules for the implementation of expressway test management for unmanned vehiclesWill be introduced
According to the policy plan, the high-speed test of self-driving cars will be opened in Beijing Intelligent Networked Vehicle Policy Pioneer Zone, including six expressways and urban expressways around Yizhuang, including Daxing International Airport Expressway, Beijing Section of Jingtai Expressway, Beijing Section of Beijing-Tianjin Expressway, South Fifth Ring Road (from the new airport expressway to the Beijing-Tianjin expressway), South Sixth Ring Road (from the new airport expressway to the Beijing-Tianjin expressway) and Daxing Airport North Line Expressway. Initially formed a physical area covering cities, airports, highways, urban expressways and other scenes.
Kong Lei introduced that regarding the test of expressways, specific access standards are still being formulated. "Because expressways are more complicated, they also involve safety issues. It is now estimated that around June this year, the implementation rules for the test management of self-driving vehicles on highways will be introduced. "
Driverless taxis will charge a certain "taxi fare"
At present, citizens can experience driverless taxis for free in Beijing Economic Development Zone. According to the policy plan, in the future, enterprises in the pioneer area can carry out business operations based on fees. This means that driverless taxis will charge passengers a certain fee.
So, what is the "taxi price" of driverless taxis? Kong Lei said that at present, there is no specific charging standard for driverless taxis, and further research is needed. "It is possible to charge a certain fee symbolically at first, and then gradually adjust it to the charging standard corresponding to the travel service, which requires a process."
At the same time, with the development of commercial operation services of driverless taxis, their service specifications will be more specific, such as what kind of standardized services will be provided for passengers, and what standards are there for health and safety in the car. The driving range of driverless taxis will also be expanded.
In addition, it is worth noting that according to the current regulations, there is a security officer in the driverless taxi that can be experienced at present, but the security officer does not touch the steering wheel during driving. In the future, will there be security officers in the driverless taxis in the pioneer area?
In this regard, Kong Lei analyzed that the "unmanned operation" of driverless taxis is the development direction, but the premise is that the vehicle has been proved to be safe and there have been no accidents during driving. Only when it meets the safety requirements can it be considered to enter "unmanned".
He also stressed that "unmanned" also needs to go through certain procedures. "The safety officer may first transfer from the driver’s seat to the co-pilot seat, then to the back seat and finally withdraw. After withdrawing the security officer, we will also arrange monitors at the remote end or in the cloud. These links will have certain requirements and standards. "
Kong Lei revealed that it is expected that security officers will be arranged to evacuate vehicles this year, but there will be certain restrictions on the driving area of vehicles. "At the beginning, the safety officers were allowed to withdraw from some specific road sections, which would have certain requirements for vehicle speed and remote control ability. This is also a gradual process."
Large-scale trial operation such as independent parking service will be carried out in the policy pioneer area.
In addition, the policy pioneer zone will support the trial operation and commercial operation services of intelligent networking scenarios. Support enterprises to carry out large-scale trial operation and commercial operation services such as self-driving travel service, intelligent networked bus, self-driving logistics vehicle and independent parking service.
Kong Lei said that the policy pioneer area will formulate application methods for new self-driving products. Explore the traffic rules and traffic management mode suitable for unmanned vehicles driving on the road, give corresponding road rights, and establish a safety supervision system for unmanned vehicles. Explore the replacement of existing electric three-wheeled and four-wheeled express vehicles in the field of express terminal distribution.
Know a little more
The construction task of phase 1.0 of the high-level autonomous driving demonstration zone was basically completed.
In September, 2020, the Beijing Municipal Government decided to build the world’s first networked cloud-controlled high-level autonomous driving demonstration zone, which settled in Beijing Economic Development Zone. Kong Lei introduced that by building a complete system of vehicle, road, cloud, network, map technology, policy and industry, the demonstration area can realize the deep integration of vehicle and network and the coordination of vehicle and road, and accelerate the safe and large-scale operation of high-level autonomous driving. At present, the phase 1.0 construction task of the demonstration area has been basically completed.
Kong Lei said frankly, "In the process of construction, we found that the development of new technologies is generally ahead of the formulation of government management policies, which leads to certain obstacles in the application and promotion of new products." In order to solve these problems, relying on the high-level autonomous driving demonstration zone, Beijing has set up an intelligent networked policy pioneer zone, built a moderately advanced policy management system, provided support for the application and promotion of new products, technologies and models of intelligent networked automobiles, and created a business environment for policy-friendly industrial development.
The reporter learned that in 2017, Beijing took the lead in introducing the management measures for self-driving road testing in China. In the past four years, six supporting policy documents such as manned loading and unmanned testing have been issued one after another, and the management measures have been continuously improved. Up to now, Beijing has opened 200 self-driving public test roads, with a total length of about 700 kilometers, and issued 571 sets of test licenses for 87 self-driving vehicles of 14 enterprises, with a cumulative safety test mileage of more than 2.68 million kilometers. The data has been at the forefront of the country.