How far is a smart travel from us ?
« Free Chinese taxi with high level security during the Covid-19 Outbreak ?»
Some years ago, the Hunan’s government experimented driverless taxi in its capital, Changsha. Now it’s an very urgent practical experimentation as Covid-19 Outbreak created new needs ! So Chinese mentality is : ” a crisis ? so there are new opportunities to improve ourself !” The giant company Baidu decided with government in Hunan to protect taxi jobs in crushing the risk with virus… Official China Labour Union for taxi driver employees did agree not blocking scientific progress for developping safety and health. But Chinese government did also agree to change laws for removing heavy Social Security Taxes on taxi drivers.
” And don’t worry, in the future, some traditional Chinese taxi drivers will go on to kindly inspire your touristic travels in the towns of China !”
Baidu’s Robotaxi service was officially launched on Baidu Maps and Baidu App’s smart applet Dutaxi, and the test ride service was fully opened to citizens of Changsha. Users of Changsha can experience Robotaxi’s self-driving taxi service through Baidu Map’s taxi service. As a result, Baidu has also become the first self-driving taxi service in the country to be opened to the public through mobile phone applications.
A revolution in all China ? No. It’s only regional trials. However, Baidu said that the this driverless vehicle will continue to expand to all roads in the Changsha demonstration area of open road intelligent driving in the later period. At the same time, there are also strict regulations on the running time. At present, Robotaxi running hours are 9: 30-12: 00 am and 13: 30-16: 20 pm. In terms of passenger requirements, the current autonomous driving service is only provided for users between 18 and 65 years old, and each vehicle can currently receive up to 2 passengers. There are 45 Apollo Robotaxis in the driverless test ride service. In terms of number, the driverless taxis are more of a trial operation operation, and according to the relevant regional reports, although Apollo Robotaxi
IT IS DRIVERLESS TAXI in the words but there are still relevant personnel in the main driving seat of each car to supervise the vehicle to ensure passenger safety !
From a technical point of view, the unmanned driving system is to collect a lot of scene information and make rapid control feedback on the vehicle. Automobile technology is dead and people are alive. When the two overlap, you need to consider the unexpectedness of human activities.
MOREOVER, during Covid-19 Outbreak, there are scan of the passengers to prevent any risks. IF YOU DON’T WEAR AN MASK… No way !
Unmanned driving involves multiple professional systems such as high-precision maps, behavior prediction, planning and control, vehicle modification, Internet of Vehicles, vehicle-road collaboration, and information security. It is by no means relying on the technology of several enterprises and a single field. Among them, the high-precision map is a very broad concept. It needs to achieve high-precision landmark location and high-precision positioning of the vehicle. What is needed behind it is huge information support and accurate data survey. Moreover, the rigor of driverless cars must be higher than that of manual driving. If people go to drive, it is normal to have some small scratches and bumps during the year.
However, if these accidents occur in the automatic driving system, they will become the focus of attention or even not accepted. For example, the TESLA automatic driving accident in the early years is one of them. Therefore, our reliability requirements for machine intelligence are much higher than manual operations. Therefore, the goal of autonomous driving is not to drive like a person, but to drive in a state where safety, comfort, and rationality completely exceed ordinary people. At this level alone, a large number of driverless technology research and development companies have been stumped.
The BAIDU company behind Robotaxi is actually the earliest domestic enterprise in the field of unmanned driving. Since 2013, Baidu unmanned driving has been in closed scenes, fixed lanes, simple city road conditions, limited area high-speed, complex city roads, city point-to-point .
The landing of the driverless taxi in Changsha means that the driverless technology has finally landed from the level of discussion to the practical application. At the same time, it also means that driverless driving will eventually enter our lives. But in the current form, driverless cars still have to face a lot of problems if they want to truly gain popularity. This includes technical, legal, social and other factors, so in terms of time, unmanned technology still has a long way to go to gain popularity.
The solution can be offering the possibility of deciding what kind of taxi, driverless or not, the passengers wish to use. But don’t we have to keep us open-minded ?
