With the landing and application of autonomous driving technology, travel, accommodation, and play related to tourism are changing. Although self-driving cars have not yet been commercialized on a large scale, tourism will be one of the industries most deeply affected by them. What impact will autonomous driving have on the travel industry? How will the way you travel and experience change?
Autonomous driving penetrates the cultural tourism industry
On the morning of September 22, 2020, the Hebei Cangzhou Autonomous Vehicle Cultural Tourism Line departed from cangzhou lion city park iron lion. Along the way, tourists take Baidu Apollo self-driving cars to drive freely on the roads of Cangzhou's main urban area, with panoramic views of iron lions, Cangzhou Museum, grand canal bay park and so on. "I really didn't expect that the self-driving technology will come so quickly and can be viewed in one day, can you find a self-driving car to take the whole family to Tibet in the future?" A tourist said.
According to reports, the autonomous driving tourism line is named "New Technology New Cultural Tourism" a total of 10 visiting points. Self-driving cars start from a predetermined starting point and plan their own route to the end point, freely speeding up and slowing down, avoiding obstacles, and identifying traffic lights. The steering wheel rotates automatically during driving, but in narrow and obstacle-prone sections, the safety officer in the car will take over the steering wheel to control the vehicle. However, safety officers do not need to touch the steering wheel in exceptional circumstances. The opening of the autonomous driving cultural tourism route means that taking a self-driving car to explore the scenery of Cangzhou will become a norm.
In addition to Cangzhou, autonomous driving has become the starting point for more and more cities to develop tourism. In Dali, Yunnan, on January 27 this year, the Dali Municipal People's Government signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Mushroom Chelian Information Technology Co., Ltd. to invest 1 billion yuan to jointly build an autonomous driving eco-tourism demonstration zone, cooperate in the fields of automatic driving and vehicle-road collaboration, and jointly build an ecological highland for the intelligent and connected automobile industry in Dali and promote the transformation of new and old kinetic energy in the tourism industry.
▲ Jiangsu Yancheng China Begonia Garden autonomous driving sightseeing car
In the China Begonia Garden in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, the blue and black self-driving sightseeing car that looks like a steamed bun can be used by tourists for free. "There is no cab in the front seat, but a tablet, a controller, and a master sitting in the back to monitor. The whole carriage has a total of 7 seats, we sat from Haitang Paradise to the North Gate parking lot, and all the roads were automatically driven according to the set route, without human intervention. A tourist said.
In Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, in October 2021, the "Autonomous Driving Ecological Demonstration Island" jointly built by Suzhou Wuzhong District and Baidu Apollo landed, launched the operation of autonomous vehicles on Taihu Lake Ecological Island, and created a dual wisdom model of "smart cultural tourism + intelligent network industry". According to the relevant person in charge of Suzhou Taihu Lake National Tourism Resort, in 2022, the resort will further promote the construction of the pilot demonstration area of automatic driving.
In the ranking of the top ten industries that autonomous driving will disrupt, the first place is tourism. In the future, autonomous driving will make car travel the same as airplane and train travel, and will also change the hotel industry, because self-driving cars are not only a means of travel, but also a mobile hotel. During the epidemic, motorhomes have become the first choice for many tourists.
Auto companies lay out the field of autonomous driving
▲ Self-driving car in Beijing Shougang Industrial Heritage Park
Searching for "autonomous driving" in Mafengwo Travel, a large wave of transportation experience products will open your eyes, not only self-driving sightseeing cars, but also self-driving buses and subways, as well as real driverless cars. In Beijing, the Daoxianghu Hotel in Haidian District, the Shougang Park in Shijingshan and other scenic spots, Baidu self-driving taxis have been laid out here, and citizens can make reservations through mobile phones at dozens of self-driving taxi stations in Haidian District and Shunyi District to make reservations and try out self-driving taxis.
Enter "automatic driving" on the donkey mother, and the related tourism project - Crowne Plaza Shanghai Yingyi Tour launched the Didi driverless experience. In fact, Didi is already an "old driver" in the field of automatic driving, since June 2020, the first batch of intelligent connected cars in Shanghai opened experience service reservations on the Didi App, and Didi Autonomous Driving took the lead in landing in Jiading.
In addition to Baidu and Didi, domestic and foreign Internet companies and car companies have laid out the field of automatic driving. Huawei, Momenta, Tucson, Horizon, etc. began to recruit and raise funds. Tesla, Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng, BAIC, etc., have all launched cars with automatic assisted driving functions. Automatic assisted driving seems to have become the "label" of high-end cars, and some insiders admit that if there is no automatic assisted driving function, I am afraid that your car will lag behind an era.
▲ Google waymo driverless
Lidar detects obstacles around the vehicle in real time, and high-definition cameras analyze routes, signal lights and road signs in real time, which is the "clairvoyance" and "tailwind ear" of the car. Tesla, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and other car manufacturers are studying to create "tomorrow's highway trains". Japan is also launching self-driving cars , the fifth-generation Serena smart van. Waymo, a subsidiary of Google in the United States, has launched a fully unmanned autonomous vehicle and tested driving in Places such as Phoenix and Arizona.
According to the latest Forbes report, 21 million people in the United States are expected to use driverless cars by 2030, while 27 million people in Europe. According to Xiao Fang, a master of outbound travel, autonomous driving will become a new trend for traveling abroad. "North America, Europe, Australia, etc. are all suitable for autonomous driving, and in Australia, roads and autonomous driving service stations are complete. However, there are also many problems with self-driving travel abroad, such as left and right drive, whether the driver's license needs to be notarized, etc. ”
Domestic autonomous driving is also ushering in more and more favorable policies. In August 2021, at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the China Association for Science and Technology - Autonomous Vehicle Industry Landing and Demonstration Operation Forum, the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone officially opened the autonomous driving high-speed scenario, which means that autonomous vehicles can drive from urban roads to highways.
Is autonomous driving really ripe?
However, is self-driving technology really that mature?
There are 5 levels of autonomous driving: L1 for driving support, L2 for partial automation, L3 for conditional automation, L4 for high automation, and L5 for full automation. "In short, it is from no feet to no hands, no eyes, no brains, no people. At this stage, automatic driving is only free hands and feet, not to liberate both eyes, and it is not equal to unmanned, and drivers should be ready to take over at any time in the face of complex situations. A power engineer said, "Although some car companies advertise that their autonomous driving technology has reached L5 level, in fact, at most in L2 or L2.5 level, with automatic follow-up, automatic braking, lane keeping, distance keeping, blind spot reminder, downhill auxiliary light assist function." ”
"Although you don't have to use your hands and feet to drive, you have to keep your eyes on it, which is no easier than driving yourself." An old driver said, "Anyway, I always hold the steering wheel, otherwise I am worried about my life." ”
"I haven't hailed a self-driving taxi yet, and I'm worried about what if my computer short-circuits?" What if the car breaks down? In addition to the safety officer, you have to have a repairman. A Changsha citizen said.
"The road conditions in Beijing are very complicated, and if we do an automatic driving, how can we drive safely in the future?" What should I do if I have an accident with a self-driving car? An office worker from Beijing expressed concern, "saying that it can alleviate the traffic situation in first-tier cities, but I think it may be more congested, unless full self-driving is realized at the same time." ”
In fact, safety is still a difficult and painful point for autonomous driving technology. In August 2021, NIO's ES8 car was involved in a traffic accident on a highway after enabling the automatic driving function. Tesla's autopilot has caused traffic accidents many times since it was put into commercial use. These show that L5 autonomous driving is still far from commercialization.
Moreover, even if the vehicle has a perception system such as radar and camera, the vehicle still has a perception blind spot. Also, do you need to park your car to avoid a child, a dog, a cat, a plastic bag, or other garbage? In the face of such unexpected situations, it is a test for in-vehicle computer systems. To be equipped with such a system and high-precision lidar and sensors, high cost is a problem that cannot be avoided.
Didi began research and development in the field of automatic driving a few years ago, it is reported that its biggest difficulty and pain point is in the urban road, if the urban road does not have V2X communication blessing, traffic lights only rely on visual recognition is very difficult, but the number of traffic lights on urban roads is large, and it is not realistic to install V2X. In short, the cost of automatic driving research and development is too high, the upfront investment is large, and the return cycle is long. However, even so, it does not affect the car companies to catch up with the field of automatic driving and unmanned driving, after all, no one wants to be "behind an era".
Expert reviews
Boldly embrace technological change
In cities, I don't think it's so optimistic when autonomous driving will be widespread at the shortest. Similar to 5G, 5G is currently only partially open to civilian use, mainly for industrial Internet use, similarly, automatic driving is more combined with cultural and tourism integration scenarios such as scenic spots. This kind of automatic driving represented by Cangzhou has brought new scenes to cultural tourism, which is also an important exploration of automatic driving application scenarios, and it is also very valuable and meaningful to itself. Autonomous driving must be combined with the industry to find new business models, but at present, it is impossible to tear open too much in the civilian area. Because, including Tesla, once something goes wrong, the public's acceptance will be greatly reduced.
Automatic driving has explored new development paths and consumption scenarios for the integration of culture and tourism, and the integration of culture and tourism also needs scientific and technological empowerment to develop in depth, and it is necessary to go in both directions to provide each other with new scenes and new formats. If the cultural industry wants to achieve high-quality development, it must be combined with new technologies represented by automatic driving. The integration of culture and tourism should boldly embrace technological change, so that there will be more room for development.
(Sun Jiashan, Associate Researcher, China Academy of Arts)
March 19, 2022 China Culture Daily
The 2nd edition featured a special report
"What changes will automatic driving bring to the cultural tourism industry"
Editor-in-charge: Chen Xiaoyue