The application of self-driving vehicles is developing rapidly at a pilot area in Chinese capital Beijing, marking an important progress in China’s urban digital economy.

Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area, or Yizhuang, is home to a high-level self-driving pilot area, and vehicles there now can navigate precisely, as they are equipped with rooftop sensors.
"The equipment on our vehicles is much more powerful than the human eye. There are lidar, millimeter-wave radar, and many cameras, which enable 360-degree real-time monitoring of road conditions and information elements on the road without blind spots," said Wang Chong, chief brand officer of Baidu Intelligent Driving Group.
Today, vehicles with rooftop sensors are running on many roads of Yizhuang. Just like online car-hailing, passengers only need to place an order on mobile phone, and an self-driving passenger car will answer. They need to scan a QR code to verify their identity before entering the vehicle.
"Safety is actually our most prioritized key guarantee indicator. We have completed 27 million kilometers of self-driving tests without any accident," said Li Chengxue, business manager of Pony.ai, a tech company focusing on self-driving.
In September 2020, the Beijing municipal government decided to build the world's first network-connected and cloud-controlled high-level self-driving pilot zone in the economic development zone to create a test and verification platform. Today, the demonstration area has entered the stage of large-scale deployment.
"I think this is a large ecosystem of the entire smart city, including smart roads and smart vehicles. Under this system, we can establish a shared travel model in the future," said Zhang Ning, vice president of Pony.ai.