China tested unmanned buses

On December 12, Shenzhen City, China, which gathers the world's largest technology companies, began testing the first four units.

China, the world's largest automobile market, has set a target that by 2015 there will be about 20% of cars traveling on highways, and by 2030 there will be about 10% of cars traveling. completely unmanned.

The first automatic bus is running a test in Shenzhen, China.(Photo: SCMP).

Shenzhen Bus Group, a public transport operator, has begun testing the first four self-driving buses equipped with software and sensors of Haylion Technologies, on a repeat road of 1.2 km. in Futian District, Shenzhen City.

According to Joseph Ma, deputy general manager of Shenzhen bus group, the purpose of this test is to gather more data on the road to refine the software. The company is a subsidiary of Hong Kong International Transportation Group, formerly known as The Kowloon Motor Bus Holdings.

The race began to heat up in Shenzhen and Shenzhen Bus Bus Group is becoming a pioneer in China's self-driving bus market. In the first test phase, the driver is still accompanied by a driver to handle unexpected situations.

Mr. Ma said, the group plans to expand to test more areas in Shenzhen, but will be limited to less-traffic and less pedestrian roads.

"The main advantage of unmanned buses is increased safety," Ma said.

Human error is the main cause of road accidents worldwide. According to World Health Organization estimates, in May last year there were about 260,000 deaths in China.

According to Ho Kien Binh, chairman of Haylion technology company, each self-driving bus is equipped with a range of active safety features including laser scanner, radar, sensor and visual scanning system. to monitor the environment around the car without blind spots.

The automatic bus model produced by Baidu and King Long Group will be started in July 2018. (Photo: SCMP).

These self-driving cars can accelerate or slow down, can turn or avoid pedestrians, traffic lights and emergency stops.

Among China's major technology companies working on self-driving vehicles, internet search engine operator Baidu has been investing most aggressively to entice large technology corporations to focus on launched the leading Chinese unmanned vehicles.

Last September, Baidu opened the fund of Apollo Fund worth 10 billion yuan (1.5 billion USD) to invest in producing more than 100 unmanned vehicles in the next three years. In October, Baidu continued to cooperate with Chinese bus maker King Long United Automotive Industry to jointly develop the country's first completely unmanned bus. Expected, the production will start in July next year.

Recent tests in other markets around the world show that unmanned vehicles still exist some problems to solve. In Las Vegas, USA last month, an unmanned bus had a minor accident about two hours after it went into operation. Last year, in Singapore, an unmanned vehicle produced by US company NuTonomy crashed into a truck when it ran a test.