Recently, the Beijing Municipal High-Level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone issued high-speed road passenger demonstration application certificates to Baidu, Pony.ai, AutoX, and WeRide. 

The four companies' intelligent connected vehicle-sharing services were approved to carry passengers between Beijing E-Town and Beijing Daxing International Airport. 

This marks the opening of the world's first airport autonomous driving passenger demonstration scene.

An autonomous driving vehicle parks on the road [Photo/beijingetown.com.cn]

Once in operation, how can citizens and passengers enjoy autonomous driving shuttle services between E-Town and Daxing Airport?

People can use apps such as Apollo Go, Baidu Maps, PonyPilot+, AutoX unmanned vehicles, and WeRide Go to book rides with the four companies' Robotaxis that have been granted permission to run this service. 

When booking, people can choose from various pick-up and drop-off points in E-Town and the terminals of Daxing Airport, covering multiple urban and highway scenarios. After successfully booking a taxi, people can wait and ride in autonomous driving vehicles at the agreed time and place.

An autonomous driving vehicle parks in front of Daxing Airport [Photo/beijingetown.com.cn]

The main route for this autonomous driving passenger shuttle demonstration includes Huangyi Road, the Jingtai Expressway, Daxing Airport North Line, the Airport Expressway, and Daxing International Airport. The highway scenario covers about 40 kilometers, where vehicles can automatically navigate through interchanges and pass through toll booths.

Pony.ai has already launched airport shuttle services on the PonyPilot+ app. People can reserve airport shuttles to Daxing Airport on the "Reserve a Car" interface of the mobile app one day in advance. Currently, Pony.ai's airport shuttle service operates from 10:00 to 17:00.

Why was Daxing Airport chosen as priority for expanding this scenario?

The airport is an important piece of transportation infrastructure supporting the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The orderly opening of autonomous driving scenarios is of great significance for serving the integrated development strategy of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, and benefits residents of the three regions.

The interior of a pony.ai autonomous driving vehicle [Photo/beijingetown.com.cn]

For the demonstration zone, expanding from E-Town to Daxing Airport, as autonomous driving vehicles travel farther and the application scenarios become richer, the achievements of the demonstration zone 3.0 expansion continue to be implemented. 

This year, based on the existing coverage of 160 square kilometers of intelligent connected roads and smart city dedicated networks, the demonstration zone's 3.0 phase will expand by another 440 square kilometers. 

Combined with the expansion of the pilot zone, it will expand the range of autonomous driving application scenarios, and continuously promote highway and urban expressway road testing scenarios.