SHENZHEN residents have a chance to experience smart transportation in the city by riding on the driverless buses in the Futian Bonded Zone and visiting the intelligent management center of Shenzhen Bus Group on Tuesday, the second day of the city’s public commuting week.

The smart buses, equipped with lidar sensors, cameras and GPS antennas, have been under testing on the 1.2-kilometer route in the Futian Bonded Zone since 2017. It was the first pilot program for autonomous driving in Shenzhen.

The buses are able to avoid pedestrians, vehicles and barriers, safely change lanes and stop at designated sites, according to Wei Yongqiang, vice manager of the operations department of the bus service branch of Shenzhen Bus Group.

The program was jointly developed by Shenzhen Bus Group and Shenzhen Haylion Science and Technology Co. Ltd. The intelligent bus system Alphaba used for driverless driving has met the necessary requirements concerning stability, safety and reliability to conduct a trial operation. The system integrates multiple technologies, such as artificial intelligence, automatic control and visual computation. It has layers of safety protection, including lidar sensors, cameras and a GPS antenna, to analyze the road situation and respond in a timely manner.

Recently, the city’s transport bureau announced the second batch of road sections, 20.69 kilometers in total on 29 roads, that will be open for tests of driverless buses. The road sections are mainly located in Futian, Nanshan and Longhua districts.

The road sections available for smart driverless tests in Shenzhen have reached 144 kilometers. Tencent, DJI and Haylion have all received licenses for tests.

Companies involved in driverless vehicle testing must hand in applications for approval and conduct tests at designated areas and time periods, according to the city’s transport bureau.

During the driverless tests, standby drivers should be assigned to handle emergencies, and the applicants need to buy a 5-million-yuan (US$789,600) traffic accident insurance policy for each vehicle or provide a letter of guarantee of 5 million yuan signed by a bank promising to compensate for damages in accidents involving a driverless vehicle.  (Han Ximin)