The Secretary for Transport and Logistics, Mable Chan, said in a blog post that she was the first passenger to take a test ride on Baidu's autonomous vehicles. Baidu is also the first enterprise to be awarded the pilot scheme for autonomous vehicles under the new regulatory framework.
Chan pointed out that the test also demonstrates a number of technological leaps forward in the new regulatory framework, one being the breaking of the single-test restriction to allow multiple vehicles to run at the same time. Since mid-February, the number of vehicles for each test has been increased from one to five, and from April 30 onwards, the number has been further increased to 10 for simultaneous operation, making the test significantly more difficult. Secondly, a breakthrough has been made in the passenger test, which can be conducted on designated road sections after completing the open road test without passengers and assessing the safety of the test. The Baidu project was able to conduct passenger testing on designated road sections five months after approval. Third, the test area will be expanded to cover more complex public roads and neighborhoods, instead of being limited to a single road section. Baidu has already extended the test section at the airport and plans to extend it to Tung Chung and Cyberport in the future. Fourth, to raise the maximum safe speed limit, according to the speed limit of the test section, from the previous 30 kilometers per hour to 50 kilometers per hour or more, which is higher than the level of other tests in the past.
Chan said the authorities plan to start in June in Tung Chung, with automatic vehicles without passengers road test. The road section will pass through different local housing estates, the initial phase mainly focuses on the roads outside the housing estates, in order to widen the application of automatic driving scene.
She said the Hong Kong International Airport will soon welcome the first and largest self-driving transportation system in Hong Kong, so that the public and travelers can experience the development and convenience of automated vehicles. The Airport Authority expects that within this year, passengers arriving in Hong Kong from the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) will be able to travel to and from the HZMB Hong Kong boundary control points and commercial facilities adjacent to the airport via the Airportcity Link by self-driving minibuses.
The journey time of the minibus is about three minutes and each vehicle can carry up to 16 passengers per trip. Upon commissioning, the Airport Authority expects that the self-driving minibuses will be able to carry about 500 passengers per hour in one direction in the short term, and the long-term target is to carry 2,000 passengers per hour in one direction. By 2028, the system is also planned to connect to Tung Chung town center, so that passengers can easily connect to the MTR network and reach out to the whole of Hong Kong, according to Chan.
There are concerns that the performance of autonomous vehicles may not be able to cope with different situations on the road. Chan said that as an emerging technology, every step taken by the authorities in leading each project is a nutrient for upgrading the subsequent technology. Apart from speed, it is more important for the development of automated driving to run steadily and far.
"The government will continue to actively promote it on the premise of safety. Apart from the airport island, we will soon see and even try out automated vehicles in Tung Chung and other districts such as the Cyberport," she said.
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