Shanghai will put the city’s first batch of driverless taxis on roads this month, even as taxi drivers push back on similar plans by Baidu to expand robotaxis in the central city of Wuhan. They will start operating in the Pudong district this week. Shanghai announced it would approve licenses for four robotaxi companies – Baidu, AutoX, Pony.ai and SAIC AI Lab – to bring “fully driverless” taxi services to Pudong. Chen Guofa, an official from SAIC AI Lab, the autonomous driving arm of SAIC Motor, was quoted by local media as saying the company got the green light to test five vehicles, while it planned to put more than 40 vehicles into service by the end of the year. Baidu’s autonomous-driving unit has yet to disclose its plans in the city after getting the new licenses, while Pony.ai said in a WeChat post earlier this month that customers will “soon be able to” book its robotaxis through its app, without giving a specific date. AutoX has labelled the designated area in Pudong as its “operation area” and has been accepting user registrations on its app. The area designated for “fully driverless” robotaxi services covers a total of 205 kilometers of roads in the Pudong district, including Pudong International Airport.
The move by Shanghai is the latest sign of China’s increasing openness to robotaxi services, despite the recent controversy in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province. A letter written on behalf of local taxi drivers last month complained that their jobs were being taken by artificial intelligence. The petition also requested that the municipal transport authority put a limit on such services, as more than 500 Baidu-operated driverless taxis were quickly gaining traction in the city.
Shanghai claims to be the first Chinese city to introduce testing policies for autonomous driving, but in terms of deployment of commercial services it is a step behind Wuhan, which calls itself “the world’s largest autonomous-driving operation service region”. Shanghai allowed some robotaxi companies to start testing vehicles in designated districts as early as 2018, although on a smaller scale compared to Wuhan. In many cases, a “safety driver” is required to sit behind the wheel and monitor the driving in Shanghai, the South China Morning Post reports
Meanwhile, in Shenzhen, 20 driverless electric minibuses are to be put into service by the end of this month on four selected routes in the city. Online reservations can be made to experience self-driving minibuses free of charge during the trial phase, while the ticket fare will be CNY1 per person once formal operations begin. The nine-seater minibuses are equipped with high-definition cameras and advanced lidar sensors, which allow them to identify with precision surrounding vehicles, pedestrians, traffic lights and changes in road conditions. A safety supervisor will be present onboard each minibus and will take control of the vehicle in case of an emergency. Shenzhen Bus Group is not the only company in China introducing self-driving technology to public transportation. Jinan Public Transport Group in Shandong province is planning to roll out four autonomous minibuses, which will be tested on public roads in designated areas. After completing 240 hours, or 1,000 kilometers, of autonomous driving tests, the company will apply for self-driving demonstration permits.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), together with four other government departments, selected 20 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Shenzhen, as participants in a pilot program for the application of “vehicle-road-cloud integration”, the China Daily reports.
