Shanghai adds over 7,000 new connected vehicle testing scenarios

Beijing (Gasgoo)- The Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission released its latest innovative measures towards intelligent connected vehicle (ICV) road tests and demonstration pilot zones applications yesterday.

Apollo Robotaxi; photo credit: Baidu Apollo

The commission proposed to open up the entire Jiading area and all 386 blocks in Lingang Special Area for ICV tests, including 372 roads totaling 722.6 km in the above two districts, allowing over 7,000 new testable transportation scenarios.

To be specific, 165 of the testing roads are in Jiading District, totaling 301.4 km, and 197 are in Lingang Special Area with 421.2 km of distance. Notably, a section of the testing roads consists of city expressways for 28.4 km.

Early on, Shanghai has already opened up four test zones covering 253 roads, 567 km of distance, and over 5,000 testing scenarios. After the latest proposal, cumulative testing distance amounted to 1,289.83 km via 615 permitted open roads, with 616.4 km in Jiading District, 97.37 km in Fengxian District, 36.66 in Pudong District, and 539.4 in Lingang Special Area.

By October 2021, Shanghai had issued 254 road test and demonstration application licenses to 25 companies. Currently, in Jiading District, five companies operate 109 ICVs on the road for normalized, large-scale people-carrying applications, including DiDi, AutoX, and Baidu Apollo. 

The commission stated Shanghai would further explore the commercial application of smart taxis, smart buses, intelligent freight service, unmanned retailing, crewless deliveries, sight-seeing shuttles, and automated street cleaning areas.

In two to three years, the city aims to expand the team to 10 participating companies, with over 100 ICVs covering over 1,000 km of testing roads. Moreover, the city set a goal of serving over 100,000 mobility orders, completing over 50,000 terminal delivery orders, with over 200,000 TEUs in the smart freight aspect annually.