By placing orders through mobile phones, "self-driving taxis" provide travel services. Recently, the country's first pilot project for the commercialization of autonomous driving travel services was launched in Beijing. Industry insiders believe that this marks a new stage in the domestic autonomous driving field from test demonstration to commercial pilot exploration.
Reporter experience: One minute to call the car, the car is equipped with safety personnel
Recently, the Beijing Municipal High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone Work Office announced that it has officially opened the country's first pilot project for the commercialization of autonomous driving services, and Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing have become the first batch of enterprises allowed to carry out commercialization pilots, and invest no more than 100 autonomous vehicles to carry out commercial pilot services within 60 square kilometers of the Beijing Economic Development Zone.
A passenger riding in a self-driving taxi in Yizhuang, Beijing, is ready to pay the fare. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Peng Ziyang
On November 25, the first domestic autonomous driving travel service commercialization pilot was officially launched in Beijing, and the reporter experienced it on the same day.
On Hongda South Road in Beijing's Economic and Technological Development Zone, the reporter called an autonomous vehicle through Baidu's "Radish Run" App, and the destination was Han's Square, about 2.6 kilometers away. The "Radish Run" App taxi interface is similar to the commonly used ride-hailing software, except that passengers need to get on and off at the set-up stops, which are about 500 meters apart.
After sending the order, the vehicle will receive the order. Three minutes later, a white red flag SUV pulled up and parked on the side of the road. The driver of the autonomous vehicle sits in the seat of a safety officer, but he does not actively intervene in any operation. After the reporter sat in the back seat, he entered the last four tail numbers of the mobile phone in the screen behind the front seat pillows, and chose to open the trip, and the vehicle started to drive to the destination. Waiting for traffic lights, overtaking, paralleling... The vehicle travels automatically and smoothly, arriving at its destination in about 7 minutes. Since the pilot has commercial subsidies, the actual fee is 1.42 yuan.
According to the pilot management requirements for the commercialization of autonomous travel services in Beijing, each vehicle needs to be equipped with a safety officer. These security officers are certified after professional training and examinations. Unlike traditional drivers, safety officers only "take over" vehicles in the event of an emergency.
In order to improve the safety and reliability of vehicles, Baidu provides dual guarantees of "vehicle-to-road collaboration" and 5G "cloud driving" in commercially operated autonomous vehicles. "Cloud driving" personnel can "fill" the unmanned system at any time.
It is understood that the current long-term operation of taxis and online ride-hailing cars in the region is about 3,000, and the investment of 100 "self-driving taxis" has played a supplementary role in public transportation. The reporter found that many people in the Beijing Economic Development Zone have become accustomed to driving by self-driving vehicles.
Previously, Baidu's "self-driving taxis" were operated for free. According to the latest statistics from Baidu, since the commercial pilot fee operation for two weeks, the number of users has not decreased but increased. Since November, the overall user satisfaction rate has been 4.9 points, and the praise rate has accounted for more than 94%. Users most often choose the evaluation labels as "full of technology", "willing to recommend to others", "willing to ride again".
Autonomous driving is rapidly evolving
At present, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changsha, Cangzhou and other places have opened up the normal operation of autonomous driving, but commercial charging is the first time.
What is the basis for commercial operation in Beijing? It is understood that in April this year, relying on the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone, Beijing set up the first intelligent and connected vehicle policy pilot zone in China, and promoted road testing, demonstration applications and commercial operation services through the first trial of the "regulatory sandbox". Since the establishment of the Pilot Zone, policies such as unmanned delivery vehicles on the road, highway testing, and unmanned testing have been issued, and the cumulative safety test mileage is close to 3 million kilometers.
Kong Lei, director of the Beijing Municipal High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone Work Office, said that the current management policy innovation has achieved good results and has the conditions to carry out commercialization pilots. The formation of an industrial closed loop of automatic driving will inevitably require the final stage of commercialization pilots.
Wei Dong, vice president and chief safety operation officer of Baidu Intelligent Driving Business Group, said that as of now, the total mileage of the test has exceeded 16 million kilometers, and its "Radish Run" has been opened for normal operation in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changsha and Cangzhou. In the third quarter of this year, "Radish Run" provided a total of 115,000 rides.
A passenger prepares to take a self-driving taxi in Yizhuang, Beijing. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Peng Ziyang
At present, many places in China have accelerated the exploration of the development of automatic driving. In Shanghai, 253 autonomous driving test roads and more than 5,000 test scenarios have been opened in the four test areas of Jiading, Lingang, Fengxian and Jinqiao; Jiangsu Wuxi will operate 3 5G autonomous driving online buses on a regular basis...
Ouyang Rihui, deputy dean of the China Internet Economy Research Institute of the Central University of Finance and Economics, said that with the rapid accumulation of the core element of "data" and the high encouragement of domestic policies for innovation, autonomous driving will usher in a new stage of rapid development. "Most people are probably underestimating the speed at which autonomous driving is evolving."
How far is it from large-scale commercialization?
Wei Dong revealed that since the test one year ago, Baidu's autonomous driving service has accumulated more than 100,000 registered users in the Beijing Economic Development Zone, and currently has 29,000 monthly active users, of which more than 40% of the users will place orders every week. "In the future, we will decide whether to apply for an increase in vehicle delivery based on changes in the needs of users."
Wei Dong believes that in the short term, commercial services for autonomous driving are still complementary to traditional travel methods, but in the long run, as more and more road networks are allowed for automatic driving testing, areas in the city will gradually expand their connections and provide more space to test various application scenarios. "It will be an orderly process of control and openness."
"Policy, technology, and public acceptance are key to accelerating commercialization in the autonomous driving industry." Peng Jun, co-founder and CEO of Xiaoma Zhixing, believes that autonomous driving technology has passed the 1.0 stage of processing conventional scenarios, and needs to verify its safety in larger and more extreme scenarios.
Self-driving taxis drive through the streets of Yizhuang, Beijing. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Peng Ziyang
According to statistics from the relevant departments of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in the past five years, the number of hacker attacks on smart cars has increased 20 times, of which 27.6% of the attacks involve vehicle control. Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 Group, believes that there is a risk of attacks on the networks of the Internet of Vehicles and car manufacturers, which may lead to the control of vehicles. Therefore, the safety capability assessment of depots is a compulsory course in the future.
It is worth noting that the supporting policies released by Beijing this time make it clear that passenger personal information, App log information, geographic information, automobile and system data, traffic flow data and generated business data collected during the commercialization pilot should be stored and used in China, and must not leave the country without approval, and enterprises also need to have the ability to establish a complete network security protection system.
Kong Lei said that the pilot zone will take safety and controllability as the first principle, and on the basis of complementarity, mutual benefit and win-win with the traditional travel service system, gradually expand the scope of commercial pilot roads or regions in a timely manner, promote commercial large-scale operation in stages, and support enterprises to gradually transition from unmanned road testing to unmanned commercialization pilots. (Reporters Guo Yujing and Lu Chang)