When you use your smartphone to hail a car, an unmanned taxi with its own "database" will show up, and accurately plan the best driving route. In the future, this scenario is expected to be realized across the Lin-gang Special Area.

Yesterday, the Regulations of the Lin-gang Special Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone were adopted at the 39th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 15th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress and will come into force on March 1 this year. The Regulations will provide strong legal safeguard for the development of Lin-gang, the first special area of its kind in China.

"The formulation of these comprehensive local regulations will play a key role in helping the Lin-gang Special Area to form an institutional opening-up system with 'Five Freedoms and One Convenience' as the core, build itself into a special economic functional area with greater international influence and competitiveness, and promote the high-level opening-up in an all-round way," remarked Yan Rui, Director of the Working Committee on Legal Affairs of the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress.

Besides boosting the free flow of various innovative elements, the advantages of an open institutional system will also turn into a "powerful engine" for industrial transformation and upgrading. The Regulations include a special chapter on the development of cutting-edge industries such as intelligent new energy vehicles. "This will help to create various types of new highland for industrial development that adapt to the special economic functional zones of the Lin-gang Special Area," said Wang Honglin, Deputy director of Lin-gang Special Area Administration.

Whole area pilot testing of intelligent interconnected vehicles has wide implications  

The Regulations contain many "substantive provisions." For example, for the road testing of intelligent interconnected vehicles, the Regulations stipulate that "The Whole Lin-gang Special Area" is open to such testing.

In the view of Zhang Zhen, Head of the Legislative Supervision Division of the Finance and Economic Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress, the two words "whole area" mean that all innovative enterprises and teams in the Lin-gang Special Area can conduct road testing in a more simulated panoramic environment in the future.

Intelligent interconnected vehicle testing is now in full swing Across Shanghai. Statistics show that Shanghai opened 615 test roads with a total length of 1,289.83 km in 2021, with 12,000 test scenarios available. In all, 25 enterprises and 295 vehicles were granted a road test license and demonstration application permit, covering Jiading, Lin-gang, Fengxian, Jinqiao, etc.

According to the Report on The Development of Intelligent Interconnected Vehicles in Shanghai (2021), Shanghai ranks first in China in terms of test road mileage, scenario richness and numbers of enterprises and licenses issued. While the pilot work has achieved initial results, many enterprises have nevertheless raised more questions when they eye at higher benchmark standards. For example, there are not many cars and people on some test road sections, there are not many application scenarios, and software iteration and update are not fast enough.

Just as children who start to learn how to walk, intelligent interconnected vehicles can only achieve safer and faster driving through continuous test driving on real roads and continuous algorithm improvement After the Regulations take effect, the Lin-gang Special Area is expected to achieve rapid testing in a wider scope, and more enterprises are likely to gain new advantages on this new business track.

"Trial commercial operation" will bring infinite opportunities

In addition to "whole area," there is another key word in the Regulations: "trial commercial operation."

The Regulations make it clear that relevant enterprises and institutions can carry out road test, demonstration application and trial commercial operation of intelligent interconnected vehicles in the whole Lin-gang Special Area as long as they get approval from the competent department of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government.

This specific provision, though very concise, leaves people with infinite space for imagination. According to a report from the Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission, Shanghai will build four mutually complimentary test demonstration areas. Among them, the Lin-gang Special Area is positioned to build a "demonstration area for future transport mode innovation."

This also means that the Lin-gang Special Area will be more like an "innovation nursery" for future intelligent driving. From unmanned taxis and medium-freight buses to small urban operating vehicles, all kinds of new applications and scenarios of intelligent driving will be tried here first.

The Lin-gang Special Area has already made innovations in related fields. For example, in the public transport field, Shanghai's first self-driving bus was put into demonstrative service in Lin-gang in the second half of 2021. In the logistics container truck field, UTOPILOT, which settled in Lin-gang last year, completed the 40,000 TEUs transportation task at Yangshan Port using "5G+4L" smart heavy trucks in 2021. It is now poised to achieve the 100,000+ TEUs target. Municipal roads, ports, mining areas, airports, trunk logistics, industrial parks are all application scenarios for intelligent interconnected vehicles. In the Lin-gang Special Area, innovative teams are working tirelessly to put such vehicles into commercial use.

At the next stage, the Lin-gang Special Area will face the test of integrated innovation in the intelligent interconnected vehicle field.

Industry experts have a vivid metaphor for it – an intelligent interconnected vehicle is more like "an enlarged smartphone." Seemingly, it looks like a terminal, but it is actually a "hub," linking numerous upstream and downstream suppliers and innovative resources together. Intelligent interconnected vehicles will also play an important role in revitalizing and innovating the industrial ecosystem, creating new economic drivers and boosting economic growth.

 

Authors: Wang Jiayi and Zhan Yue, Wenhui Daily