Ordos in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region is becoming a testing ground for the future of intelligent transportation, as more smart driving applications roll out onto its streets.

Behind this innovation lies a key strategy – vehicle-road-cloud integration – a comprehensive approach that brings together smart vehicles, intelligent infrastructure, and powerful cloud computing to enable safer, more efficient, and more comfortable travel.

In 2024, Ordos was approved as a national pilot city for vehicle-road-cloud integration by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and four other ministries. Today, the city is accelerating the deployment of this system across diverse fields such as public transportation, smart commuting, and logistics, turning futuristic concepts into a reality.

On the streets of Kangbashi district, autonomous shuttle buses operate from smart stations where digital screens display real-time vehicle locations. Inside the vehicle, tester Gao Tong monitors a screen while the steering wheel turns automatically, managing turns, acceleration, and stops without manual input.

"Each vehicle is equipped with five LiDAR sensors, which act as 'electronic eyes', allowing it to recognize traffic signals and avoid obstacles within 0.3 seconds," Gao explained. After extensive road testing, these autonomous tour buses have advanced from frequent halts to smooth rides, with speeds increasing from 20 kilometers per hour to 25 km/h.

But smart mobility in Ordos goes far beyond city streets. Autonomous heavy-duty trucks now cruise on expressways, while self-driving mining vehicles operate around the clock in open-pit coal mines.

"As a major national energy base, Ordos sees logistics as a critical area of application for smart vehicles," said Chen Hongjun, general manager of the Ordos Intelligent Connected Vehicle Innovation Center. “Long-distance freight transport has high operational costs, making the need for integrated autonomous solutions especially urgent. With over 330,000 freight trucks on the road annually and relatively simple driving environments, Ordos offers ideal conditions to commercialize autonomous driving in both the freight and mining sectors," Chen noted.

Ensuring the safety of these "smart cars" also requires "smart roads." Ordos is gradually installing sensing infrastructure, including cameras, millimeter-wave radar, and LiDAR systems. Intelligent roadside units are being deployed to upgrade key intersections and support real-time data exchange.

Meanwhile, the cloud platform functions as the city's traffic brain, collecting data from vehicles and road infrastructure to enable coordinated perception, decision-making, and control. At Ordos’ central integration hub, a massive curved screen displays a dynamic digital twin of the city, showcasing real-time updates on traffic flow, smart intersections, and connected vehicles across a unified “city-wide cloud.”

Ordos has opened all public roads for autonomous vehicle testing, with over 10 companies, including Huawei, TagoreTech, GAC Group, and King Long, now conducting road tests. In urban service sectors, 70 smart vehicles have been deployed. For large-scale freight, 300 autonomous trucks are now demonstrating advanced platooning (L2+ to L4 levels) along major routes.