After nearly three months of intensive construction work, the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone project - built by the Urban Operation Bureau of the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area (BDA) - has completed phase 1.0 of its construction. 

Meanwhile, the first phase of the BDA's intelligent transportation project has also been completed. 

Roadside equipment and facilities have been installed at road junctions over a total distance of 12.1 kilometers in order to form a road-to-vehicle coordination system which can test autonomous vehicles and support autonomous driving to a higher level. The task of building an autonomous, intelligent parking system has also been successfully completed.

Vehicle-road collaborative intelligent transformation work has been completed as part of the first phase of the High-Level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone. Autonomous driving roadside equipment and facilities have been installed at 28 intersections along 12.1 kilometers of road, including Ronghua Road, Rongjing Street, Hongda Middle Road, Kechuang Fifth Street, and Sanhaizi East Road. 

These facilities form the basis of capabilities that support L4 autonomous vehicles in carrying out autonomous driving and vehicle-road collaborative test operations.

What changes have been made for autonomous vehicles driving on the roads in the demonstration zone during phase 1.0? 

Using the Baidu Apollo self-driving car for road testing, it's been found that when driving near a road intersection, the screen in the car shows the road position of the vehicle, and arrow symbols are used to mark the direction of the road going straight or turning.

Red, green and yellow colors are used to show the real-time status of signal lights in front. Temporary traffic cones, parked vehicles, and pedestrians on the road can also be displayed on the screen in real time.

The first phase of the construction of the vehicle-road coordination system has also seen the development of an electronic police system, intelligent signal control system, intelligent traffic management system, intelligent signal optimization control platform, AVP self-service parking intelligent system and other intelligent function systems. 

Through the use of vehicle-road-cloud integrated technology, the program not only empowers high-level self-driving vehicles, but also provides auxiliary early warnings and information services for low-level self-driving vehicles and traditional non-self-driving vehicles.

The High-Level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone is based across the entire BDA, and plans to complete the development of five systems - "smart roads, smart cars, real-time cloud, reliable networks, and accurate maps" - by 2022.

The BDA will undergo a trial period of three to six months in order to continuously revise and improve subsequent construction methods and content, and gradually identify the best configuration relationship between the road and the cloud. 

After the 1.0 phase (experimental environment construction), small steps as well as fast and iterative improvements will be adopted to promote the construction and operation of stage 2.0 (small-scale deployment), stage 3.0 (scale deployment and scene expansion), and stage 4.0 (promotion and scene optimization).

All these four stages will eventually form a mature model, which in turn will enable the commercialization of application scenarios which can be gradually replicated and promoted in other areas of Beijing.