On the afternoon of January 16th, the 2021 China Electric Vehicle Hundred People Forum Senior Forum opened in Beijing. Wang Menghui, the Minister of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, gave a speech on two issues: the coordinated development of new urban infrastructure and the development of smart cities and intelligent connected vehicles.
Accelerating the construction and renovation of new urban infrastructure
Cities provide a broad application scenario and innovation space for new information technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things, big data, and industrial Internet. By digitizing, networking, and intelligently constructing and renovating urban infrastructure, new technologies, industries, business types, and models can be deeply integrated with urban planning, construction, and management, improving the carrying capacity and management service level of cities, promoting the transformation of urban development and construction methods, driving high-quality urban development, and unleashing the huge potential of urban development in China. It can cultivate new economic growth points, play an important role in promoting domestic demand with urban construction as a leverage point, and promote the construction of a new development pattern.
In 2020, to implement the central government’s decision-making and deployment on strengthening the construction of new urbanization and new infrastructure, we, together with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and other six ministries, issued the “Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of New Urban Infrastructure” to dock the “new city construction” with the “new infrastructure”, leading urban transformation and development and overall improving the construction level and operation efficiency of cities.
“New city construction” mainly includes seven aspects:
The first is to comprehensively promote the construction of the City Information Model (CIM) platform. Integrate urban space information model data and city operation perception data, build a city-wide intelligent perception system that covers the whole city and is interconnected, create a smart city basic operation platform, and promote the application of the CIM platform in the fields of urban medical examination, smart city management, intelligent community, and intelligent transportation.
The second is to promote the construction and renovation of intelligent municipal infrastructure. Upgrade and intelligentize the municipal infrastructure such as water supply, drainage, power supply, gas, and heat, improve the operating efficiency and safety performance of municipal infrastructure.
The third is to coordinate the development of smart cities and intelligent connected vehicles. Starting from supporting the application of intelligent connected vehicles and improving urban travel, build a sensing system that integrates urban roads, buildings, and public facilities, create a Car-City-Net platform, and achieve coordinated development of “smart vehicles, intelligent roads, and smart cities.”
The fourth is to build an intelligent urban safety supervision platform. Based on the CIM platform, integrate information resources such as urban medical examination, municipal infrastructure construction and operation, and building construction and use safety, make full use of modern technology and information methods, and strengthen the intelligent management of urban safety.
The fifth is to accelerate the construction of smart communities. Build a smart community data platform, use new technologies such as 5G and the Internet of Things to digitize and intelligentize community facilities and equipment, and realize intelligent community management.## Six, Promoting the Coordinated Development of Intelligent Construction and Industrialization in the Construction Industry
Efforts will be made to vigorously develop digital design, intelligent production, intelligent construction, and intelligent operation and maintenance, accelerate the research and development and application of Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology, build an Internet platform for the construction industry, and form an intelligent construction industry system with full industry chain integration.
Seven, Advancing the Urban Comprehensive Management Service Platform Construction
Efforts will be made to build an intelligent city operation management service platform integrating perception, analysis, service, command, supervision and evaluation, strengthen overall coordination, command and supervision, and comprehensive evaluation of urban management, and promote the “one-network management” of urban governance.
We have carried out pilot work on the construction of new urban infrastructure in more than 20 cities nationwide, and many cities have applied to conduct pilot projects for the coordinated development of smart cities and intelligent vehicles. This fully demonstrates that people are increasingly aware that automobiles have become an indispensable part of urban production and life. Urban planning, construction, and management must fully consider the trend of automobile development and its impact on cities, especially in the context of the digital transformation, networking, and intelligent transformation of both cities and automobiles. We need to reshape the relationship between cars and cities, maximize the search for the combination of the two, and more extensively and profoundly utilize digital, networking, and intelligent technologies to solve the “urban diseases” such as traffic congestion, air pollution, and parking difficulties caused by the rapid popularization of automobiles. This will make cities more healthy, safe, and livable, and become a space for high-quality life for the people.
Coordinating the Development of Smart Cities and Intelligent Connected Vehicles
With the accelerated development of automobiles towards intelligence, networking, electrification, sharing, and greenization, the demand for digital and intelligent city buildings, roads, facilities, etc. is also increasing. Automobiles need new urban infrastructure support and protection more than ever before. On the other hand, the construction and development of smart cities also needs smart connected vehicles as the entry point and driving force, through reasonable planning and optimization to improve the travel services of urban infrastructure development and enhance the operational efficiency of cities. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the coordinated development of smart cities and intelligent connected vehicles, and achieve maximum coordination in infrastructure, city platforms, and application scenarios.
Since 2018, we have carried out pilot work on urban intelligent vehicle infrastructure and mechanism construction in Ningbo and Deqing, Quanzhou and Putian in Fujian, Wuhan in Hubei, Guangzhou in Guangdong, and other places. At the end of 2020, we worked with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to carry out a pilot project on smart city infrastructure and intelligent connected vehicles’ coordinated development, focusing on four areas.- One is to explore the construction of intelligent roads in cities and support the coordinated development of vehicles and roads. The pilot cities have built 5G networks on both sides of some roads, installed perception and computing equipment such as cameras and radars, and provided BeiDou positioning and high-precision map services. This not only supports demonstrations of automatic driving at different levels but also enables intelligent travel for non-autonomous vehicles. Currently, Wuhan has completed the intelligent transformation of more than 100 kilometers of urban roads, and Deqing County has also completed the transformation of more than 80 kilometers of roads. From the pilot situation, automakers need to provide more detailed requirements to make the constructed intelligent roads operate better. At the same time, equipment suppliers need to increase R&D efforts and significantly reduce equipment costs to lower the cost of intelligent road construction. We will strengthen communication with pilot cities, automakers, and operators, study and issue guidelines for pilot intelligent city road construction, and further clarify the functional division of vehicles and roads in intelligent development.
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The second is to build a vehicle-city network platform. We have built the CIM platform in major provincial capitals, which means that the buildings in these places already have digital identification cards, and initial digital management of the buildings has been implemented. Based on the CIM platform, our next step is to support pilot cities in exploring and building the vehicle-city network platform. This platform will further digitize urban road facilities, municipal facilities, communication facilities, perception facilities, vehicles, etc., and connect them to a unified platform for management, achieving comprehensive perception and vehicle-city interconnection. From the application of the platform, based on the vehicle-city network platform, real-time dynamic monitoring and management of vehicles can be performed, urban traffic can be optimized, and stronger support can be provided for fine-grained urban governance. Based on the pilot, we will study and issue technical guidelines for the construction of the vehicle-city network platform, further breaking down data silos, promoting the diversified integration of urban infrastructure and perception equipment, and advancing the coordinated research and development, data sharing, and interconnection of the CIM platform, vehicle-city network platform, and intelligent vehicle operating system.
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The third is to support the multi-scenario application of new technologies and new industries such as 5G, automatic driving, vehicle-road coordination, and artificial intelligence in cities. We have the advantage of our institutional strength to concentrate efforts on major tasks, and the government can coordinate effectively and achieve results quickly. We fully have the conditions to take the lead in the world in fields such as 5G, automatic driving, and artificial intelligence. Based on the actual needs in urban construction, pilot cities have continuously released application scenarios, provided application conditions, and promoted the landing of new technologies, conducting demonstration applications in intelligent connected public transportation, environmental sanitation, logistics, taxis, bicycles, and other aspects. For example, Putian City has built an automatic driving sightseeing experience route on Meizhou Island, deploying unmanned cleaning vehicles and demonstrating the operation of automatic driving sightseeing minibusses. Fuzhou and Quanzhou cities have used new technologies to regulate and manage internet rental electric bicycles. We will summarize the experience of the pilots, work with relevant departments to further carry out demonstrations of self-parking and rentable electric bicycles.- Four is to innovate the system and mechanism, encourage multiple entities to participate in construction and operation. The construction of intelligent infrastructure requires better play of the government’s role, so that the market can play a decisive role in the process of resource allocation. The government needs to strengthen guidance, provide policy support, and build innovation platforms for enterprises and users, with the aim of exploring policy mechanisms and business models for the coordinated development of smart cars and smart cities. At present, pilot cities have already made some explorations in terms of system and mechanism innovation. For example, the Wuhan Municipal Government and professional institutions jointly plan and introduce more than 20 companies to jointly build intelligent car infrastructure based on the “Smart Car and Smart City Coordinated Development Alliance”. The Guangzhou Municipal Government promotes state-owned enterprises such as the Urban Investment Group, the Metro Group, and the Construction Group to jointly establish the Guangzhou Smart City Investment and Operation Co., Ltd., actively participating in pilot construction. We will guide pilot cities to further promote diversification of investment entities, innovate operational models, and quickly form experiences that can be replicated and promoted.
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Science and technology has always been a powerful driving force for promoting sustained urban development. We should fully utilize the opportunities brought by digital, networked, and intelligent transformations, and continuously explore the best combination and foothold for the coordinated development of cars and cities to maximize the synergies and promote the harmonious coexistence and inclusive development of cars and cities.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.