China First Level-4 Autonomous Driving Bus Operated in Chongqing

At 12:00 noon on April 12^th, a red King Long bus slowly drove into the driverless bus platform of Yongchuan where lines of awaiting citizens ready to get onboard orderly. This is the first trial operation of self-driving bus in China, marking a major commercialization breakthrough for Chinese autonomous driving industry.

On the same day, Yongchuan District of Chongqing held a signing ceremony for the kickoff of self-driving bus operation and strategic cooperation of intelligent transportation project, through which Chongqing Yongchuan and Baidu reached strategic cooperation on the pilot project of intelligent transportation in Yongchuan District with the aim to build Yongchuan as a national benchmark city of intelligent transportation. The official launch of driverless bus is just an important part of intelligent transport, which substantially benefits the public transit through intelligent travel.

The first self-driving bus route in the country covers a round-trip distance of nearly 10km where the first three King Long self-driving buses robobus are operated with a cruising range of 40-60km/h. As self-driving buses for open road operations, these buses feature precise stops and can easily adapt to bus stop scenarios and more complex urban road conditions to fully meet the needs of normal bus operations.

With laser radar, millimeter wave radar, monocular cameras and other “black technology”, King Long Robobus will be able to detect its surrounding at 360 degrees broad vision without dead corners which driving. Combined with V2X vehicle-road synergy, it can realize Level-4 vehicle-road cooperative sensing driving via the communication between the on-board OBU and intelligent network-connected roadside units. The V2X communication technology enable the vehicle to receive real-time high precision sensing data of comprehensive traffic participants on the road from the roadside intelligent sensing system, including the current flow of pedestrians and vehicles on the road, blind spots that are not visible, which will be processed and displayed on the dashboard screen for driver’s convenience. By means of V2X, vehicles can even anticipate when the traffic lights will change and figure out the waiting time in advance, which facilitate the planning in advance to improve traffic efficiency and to realize the close integration of smart cars and intelligent roads.

The development of intelligent transportation is an inevitable choice for a country to be a transportation power as well as an inevitable way to meet the public's need for better travel. The intelligent networked vehicle based on vehicle networking and intelligence is a strategic high point for future industrial development. King Long Bus took the lead in the launch of intelligent, networked, electrification and shared vehicles and has become a pioneer and market leader in industry innovation.

The first launch of self-driving bus signifies a new milestone of smart mobility for mass transit. With the development of the V2X (Vehicle to Everything) and more new emerging cities, smart city construction has become a trend with intelligent transportation taking the lead as the most important foundation. With the corporate vision of "becoming a solution provider of intelligent transportation system", King Long will continue to promote the green, intelligent and networked transportation with intelligent technology to create a better travel ecosystem.