Shanghai Aims for Full Autonomous Driving Test Road Openings This Year

On July 28, during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Han Dadong, Deputy Inspector of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization and Director of the Automobile Industry Division, revealed in an interview that Shanghai aims to achieve full opening of autonomous driving test roads in the Pudong New Area by the end of this year. The city will also promote openings in regions such as Fengxian and Minhang. Notably, this plan excludes key areas like Lujiazui, which currently experiences heavy traffic. The planned open areas in Minhang include the Hongqiao Hub, while Fengxian is primarily collaborating with the city to open key scenarios and connect the autonomous driving test areas with open roads due to its less developed autonomous driving application ecosystem. On July 26, Shanghai issued a new batch of demonstration operation licenses for intelligent connected vehicles at the AI conference, allowing companies such as Pony.ai, Baidu Apollo, and Saike Intelligent to conduct paid services in the central urban area. Furthermore, Shanghai released the "Action Plan for High-Level Autonomous Driving Leading Area 'Mosu Zhixing'" which sets a goal of achieving over 6 million passenger trips with Level 4 autonomous driving by 2027, opening over 5,000 kilometers of roads, and having more than 90% of new cars equipped with Level 2 and Level 3 functionalities. The action plan emphasizes building diverse application scenarios to establish Shanghai as a leading area for high-level autonomous driving, expanding the scale of policy applications steadily, promoting the orderly deployment of unmanned driving equipment, and exploring standard operational modes for unmanned delivery, inspections, and automated parking. Additionally, Shanghai will enhance its autonomous driving verification testing capabilities by establishing key laboratories for intelligent connected vehicle traffic safety and other third-party platforms, while strengthening the verification of autonomous driving systems and operational services. Han Dadong stated that Shanghai will accelerate the creation of a globally leading high-level autonomous driving area through multidimensional collaboration involving data platforms, training bases, key technologies, and policy frameworks.