Beijing enforces China's first fully autonomous ride-hailing pilot operation

Beijing (Gasgoo)- On April 28th, Beijing High-level Automated Driving Demonstration Area (BJHAD) officially issued its management and enforcement regulation on driverless passenger vehicle road test and demonstration, and started driverless vehicle pilot operation in the area as China’s first. 

Photo credit: Beijing E-Town

According to BJHAD, the first companies to receive the corresponding permits for fully autonomous mobility operations in the area are Baidu and Pony.ai, with a total of 14 crewless vehicles. 

BJHAD has accumulated over 80,000 kilometers of autonomous driving road test mileages without accident since October 2021, setting a solid foundation for the driverless Robotaxi service operation.

Specifically, the driverless operation is limited to fully autonomous vehicles with no drivers onboard but with safety monitors in the passenger seats. The regulation sets explicit standards on mileage, order volume, safe operating requirements, user notices, and mobile apps for entities of application, test vehicles, and safety monitors to comply. 

Moreover, BJHAD built a scientific admittance system on account for the three stages of autonomous road tests, including mileage index, ratio of autonomous driving mileages, and safe operation standards. The area also adopts a point management mechanism in terms of violations. 

In addition, BJHAD flexibly established various test measures and methods such as closed sites, laboratories, and simulations to test out the safety risks of driverless ride-hailing operations. 

After the regulation is enforced, the open area of driverless Robotaxi service will be expanded from 20 square kilometers to the 60 square kilometers of core area in Beijing’s E-Town.