By outdoor-nature-child.com The 2024 World Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference took place from October 17 to 19 in Beijing, where significant advancements in autonomous driving were highlighted. An official from the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone revealed that the intelligent infrastructure deployment covering 600 square kilometers has been completed. The next phase will expand the demonstration area to around 3,000 square kilometers, stretching from the Fourth Ring Road to the Sixth Ring Road—more than twice the area of Beijing’s six urban districts.
According to Xinhua News Agency, Beijing initiated the construction of China’s first high-level autonomous driving demonstration zone in Yizhuang back in September 2020. The initiative focuses on verifying key technologies related to the integration of vehicles, roads, clouds, networks, and maps. Over the past four years, the city has built a foundation for an integrated infrastructure that now covers 600 square kilometers.
In terms of application scenarios, key companies such as Baidu, Pony.ai, WeRide, Neolix, and JD.com have gathered in this high-level autonomous driving demonstration zone. They have collaborated to showcase eight types of applications, including smart networked passenger vehicles, unmanned delivery, patrol services, trunk logistics, and autonomous sanitation.
To date, the demonstration zone has issued road test licenses for 33 testing companies, allowing nearly 900 vehicles to participate in autonomous driving tests, which have accumulated over 32 million kilometers—accounting for more than a quarter of China’s total testing mileage. Autonomous driving shuttles have begun testing at Beijing Daxing International Airport, Beijing South Railway Station, and Yizhuang Station, with smooth operations also established for automated trunk logistics on the Jing-Jin-Tan Expressway.
Beijing is one of 16 pilot cities in China focusing on the collaborative development of smart city infrastructure and intelligent connected vehicles. The demonstration zone is also contributing to the finer governance of smart cities through traffic signal optimization, big data foundations for road transportation, and data application explorations.
Currently, within the 60 square kilometer area of Yizhuang, 257 traffic signal intersections are being dynamically optimized. Each day, nearly 30,000 dynamic adjustments are made to red and green light timings, with an average of 113 optimizations per intersection. This refined governance has resulted in a 20% increase in traffic flow at key intersections while simultaneously reducing average stops by 22%, shortening travel times by 12%, and increasing average speeds by 12%.
Looking ahead, the responsible official from the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone indicated plans to further expand the initiative into broader areas and more diverse scenarios, aiming to create a demonstration of a “smart city” in Beijing through integrated vehicle-road-cloud services and commercial explorations of new infrastructure.