1.Overview of the Development of Smart Bus in China
Promoting the development of intelligent public transportation is the direction of developing modern smart cities and an effective measure for cities to achieve high-quality transportation development. According to statistics, the number of buses and electric buses nationwide increased from 375,000 to 589,900 from 2010 to 2020. As city bus construction continues to increase and the number of vehicles steadily grows, the level of equipment technology has also rapidly improved. This is mainly reflected in the increasing intelligence of dispatch management technology and overall travel service levels, which not only better meet urban transportation needs but also become an important lever for promoting the development of smart cities in China. The fundamental purpose of promoting the smart bus is to enhance the quality of public transportation services, guide urban residents to prioritize bus for travel, and contribute to urban transportation and sustainable development.
During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, China began comprehensive promotion of the smart bus. Thirty-six pilot cities completed the “Urban Smart Bus Application Project,” driving the national construction of urban public transportation informatization and intelligentization. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the planning and construction of “Internet and City Bus” in the transportation industry promoted the deep integration of mobile Internet and smart bus. With active support from national policies, pilot projects and demonstration projects in cutting-edge areas such as autonomous driving and vehicle-road coordination have been carried out in Beijing, Shanghai, Hebei, and other places. Supported and driven by information technologies such as 5G and the Internet of Things, unmanned buses have been used in cities such as Suzhou, Shenzhen, and Xiamen. City bus and mass travel services are gradually realizing automatic driving and intelligent networking. New technologies and urban public transportation have entered a stage of deep integration, initially realizing the coordinated development of smart bus technology innovation and application.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s intelligentization of public transportation will comprehensively enter the stage of “smart bus” construction. The “14th Five-Year Plan” outline released by the state in March 2021 clearly stated the development of urban intelligent transportation, green transportation, and other related themes, accelerating the digitization transformation of traditional transportation infrastructure, prioritizing the development of urban public transportation, promoting the construction of new smart cities, and the intelligentization of urban public transportation will enter a stage of high-quality development.
2.Key Technologies and Their Drive on Related Industries in the Innovative Development of Smart Bus
Compared with traditional bus, smart bus has two main features. First, in terms of technical characteristics, it integrates new technologies such as big data, cloud computing, autonomous driving, intelligent networking, and electric vehicles into bus operations, services, and management, improving the intelligence, personalization, and low-carbon level. Secondly, in terms of operation management and service quality, it aims to create a new type of bus system with higher service levels and more humanized characteristics. At present, the key technologies and application areas of innovative development of bus in Chinese cities mainly include: electronic boards and smart bus stations, bus data and customized public transportation, intelligent networked bus, etc.
From the perspective of driving the industrial economy with new technologies, smart bus is a comprehensive industry that integrates software and hardware development, system integration, and information technology services, with high technological content and added value. As the integration of production, and research continues to strengthen, the construction of smart bus also has the characteristics of large upstream and downstream industry connections, strong industry driving force, and long industry chains, mainly reflected in the following aspects:
1.The construction of smart bus stations involves components such as cameras, WiFi, mobile phone charging interfaces, environmental monitoring sensors, digital displays, light controllers, emergency calls, etc., some of which are also equipped with unmanned vending machines, public umbrella rental machines, smart trash cans, and other equipment, with a large degree of industry relevance.
2.In terms of the intelligence of buses themselves, it generally requires the installation of driving behavior detection devices (DMS), auxiliary safety driving devices (ADAS), to enhance driving safety. Installation of Beidou positioning equipment for real-time vehicle positioning; Installation of monitoring equipment and passenger flow statistics equipment to ensure real-time monitoring of vehicles. The smart buses can drive the development of a series of related industries such as onboard terminal.
3.In the construction of intelligent networked bus systems, road intelligence upgrading and transformation are generally required. Roadside equipment such as video surveillance, laser radar, millimeter-wave radar, edge computing servers, etc., need to be installed to achieve full coverage of 5G and LTE-V2X networks, and to carry out road-vehicle-cloud integrated system construction. It can drive the formation of related industrial chains such as high-performance intelligent sensors, car networking module chips, terminal equipment, whole vehicle manufacturing, operation services, and test verification.
4.In terms of management software, it will drive the development of software industries such as public transportation operation scheduling system, enterprise management system, and industry supervision system.
5.In the field of bus travel information services and payments, various travel service software and payment methods will regard bus as an important traffic entrance. For example, in April 2022, Chongqing opened a digital bus payment, realizing the functions of QR code payment for regular and customized public transportation with digital RMB for the first time in Chongqing, marking the successful landing of the first digital RMB bus payment in Chongqing.
6.China’s Achievements in Smart Public Transportation Heading to Overseas MarketsAt the end of 2020, domestic companies completed the intelligent IC card system construction, terminal installation, operation management, and card payment projects for six public transportation companies, 53 bus routes, and more than 2,000 buses in Myanmar, leading the successful export and promotion of China’s integrated smart bus products and services, and achieving high-quality landing applications overseas, which played a good demonstration effect on the promotion and application of transportation technology in China. In 2021, Chinese companies successfully won the bid for the intelligent transformation project of public transportation systems in the capital of Ethiopia. These smart bus projects going abroad mark an important beginning for China’s technical standards to systematically enter overseas markets, which is of great significance and far-reaching impact for China’s intelligent transportation industry.