The Ministry of Transport issued the Service Guidelines for the Transportation Safety of Autonomous Vehicles (Trial) to accelerate the commercial operation of autonomous driving

On December 5, the General Office of the Ministry of Transport issued the Service Guidelines for the Transportation Safety of Autonomous Vehicles (Trial) (hereinafter referred to as the Service Guidelines). It outlines clear requirements in eight areas, including the applicable scope, basic principles, application scenarios, operators of transport services, personnel staffing, transport vehicles, safety guarantees, and safety supervision of autonomous vehicles.

Specifically, in terms of the applicable scope, it is clarified that the Service Guidelines applies to the use of autonomous vehicles on various roads, such as urban roads and highways, that are open to social motor vehicles to engage in operational activities such as urban public bus and electric vehicle passenger transport, taxi passenger transport, road passenger transport, and road freight transport.

In addition, the Service Guidelines defines autonomous vehicles as those that are capable of performing all dynamic driving tasks under designated operating conditions and included in the product access scope by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology according to relevant national standards, including conditionally automated vehicles, highly automated vehicles, and fully automated vehicles as defined by the national standard Taxonomy of Driving Automation for Vehicles (GB/T40429-2021).

Previously, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the Ministry of Transport jointly issued the Circular on Implementing the Pilot Program of Access and On-road Traffic of Intelligent Connected Vehicles, which formally made specific requirements for the access standards of L3/L4 autonomous driving and clarified for the first time the responsibility for high-level intelligent driving accidents. Together with the Service Guidelines for the Transportation Safety of Autonomous Vehicles (Trial) issued this time, they will provide strong support and guarantee for the commercial operation of autonomous driving.