China's first open road driverless bus service demonstration route was unveiled at the opening of the Xiangjiang New Area Intelligence System Testing Area in Changsha City, Hunan Province on June 12.
It is expected that intellibuses will begin carrying passengers in trial operation on the 7,437-meter-long demonstration route sometime between October and December this year.
The planned route starts in the testing area in the south and ends at Hanpu Avenue in the north, passing through Xueshi Road and Lianping Avenue en route. It has eight stops on up trips and seven strops on down trips.
Once the autonomous mode is chosen, the bus will run at a speed of 30 kilometers per hour.
Though its operation is automatically controlled, there is still a driver on duty to ensure passengers' safety through manual intervention should emergencies arise.