Faster, more intelligent and more affordable — a bus fleet, equipped with a domestically developed navigation system and other technologies, is providing a ride-hailing service for 120,000 people in the city of Zhuzhou, Hunan province.
For only 2 yuan (28 cents), people can make a quick online reservation to hail a shuttle bus by phone and board within five to 10 minutes, using nearly 100"virtual bus stops".
According to the bus fleet's operator, the buses were put into trial operation in mid-October and run from 7 am to 10 pm in a region where nine vocational education colleges and other residential communities are located.
Developed by Chinese automaker CRRC Electric Vehicle Co, such buses are 5.3 meters long and utilize technologies including the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System and big-data analysis. According to the company, they can travel on narrow highways, and do not have fixed routes or designated stops. Through the company's self-developed reservation platform, a driving route can be automatically tailored for passengers.
When multiple ride requests are received, the platform combines nearby or similar destinations to create an efficient shared route. This way, buses can be precisely dispatched to provide direct, point-to-point service, allowing each trip to respond flexibly to real-time needs rather than following predetermined stops. Such a bus fleet not only advances low-carbon transit but also enhances intelligent transit operations, said Liu Weidong, deputy general manager of Zhuzhou Bus, adding that it has great potential, considering the applications in urban communities and remote industrial parks.
China has an extensive urban public transportation system. By the end of last year, the country had 79,800 urban bus lines, with a total length of 1.7 million kilometers, Wang Xiuchun, an official with the Ministry of Transport, told a news conference on Oct 31.
A total of 682,000 buses are in operation, about 81 percent of which are new-energy vehicles, she said.