Beijing opens more roads for testing self-driving cars

BEIJING -- Beijing opened 52 additional roads on Tuesday in Haidian district, the capital's tech hub, for the testing of autonomous vehicles to push the speedy development of self-driving technology, local authorities said Wednesday.

The roads totaling 215.3 km are part of a demonstration area for self-driving vehicles. They spread over 100 square km in the northern region of Zhongguancun Science City, according to the Haidian district government.

According to the plan, Haidian district will continue to open more roads for testing self-driving vehicles in the demonstration area in 2020.

In the future, the demonstration area will develop a series of new infrastructure projects involving self-driving technology, precision maps and smart transportation.

In March 2018, Beijing earmarked 33 roads with a total length of 105 km for testing autonomous cars in Daxing, Shunyi and Haidian districts, all of which lie outside the Fifth Ring Road and away from densely-populated areas.

By the end of 2019, Beijing had opened 151 roads measuring about 503.68 km for the purpose.

According to a government plan, test spaces for intelligent connected vehicles in the capital are expected to reach 500 square km by 2022, and a total of 2,000 km of roads are likely to be opened for testing.