An employee purchases his meal from an unmanned vending machine. [Photo/kfqgw.beijing.gov.cn]

Unmanned vending vehicles can drive on the roads in the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area (BDA).

Recently, employees in many parts of the area have been rushing downstairs to line up at lunch every day. What they are waiting for is an unmanned lunch car.

At 11:30, there were already more than ten employees waiting on the plaza on the north side of the park. 

Five minutes later, an unmanned vending vehicle produced by Neolix came slowly with lunch. After the car stopped, everyone went forward and scanned the code to buy food. 

Black pepper and beef bibimbap, soy-flavored braised pork rice, mozzarella cheese chicken bibimbap and sour cowpea rice with minced meat were offered. The price ranged from 16.8 yuan ($2.63) to 20.8 yuan.

Currently, Neolix's unmanned vehicles are active in nine parks, including the Yicheng Fortune Center, the Hongda Industrial Park, the Longsheng Building, the Biomedical Park, the Yicheng International, the BDA Enterprise Avenue, the Digital Factory, the Yicheng Technology Center and the Jinghai Industrial Park. 

One car can sell more than 300 meals when the passenger flow is at its highest.

"In the next step, unmanned vending cars will travel freely on the roads, and choose the place of sale based on the density of people to facilitate residents," According to Hu Yufei, chief operating officer of Neolix.

As a pioneering area for Beijing's intelligent networked vehicle policy, the BDA will further optimize autonomous driving technology to put it into use in reality.

"We encourage fully-proven intelligent networked car companies to take the lead in conducting trial operation and commercial operation services in the policy pilot zone," said Jie Fei, deputy director of the BDA's Science and Technology Innovation Bureau.

In the future, employees and residents of Beijing E-Town will be the first to experience autonomous driving travel services, intelligent connected buses, autonomous driving logistics and independent valet parking, Jie noted.