Beijing became the third first-tier city in China to allow public road tests of autonomous driving vehicles after Guangzhou and Shanghai, according to Beijing's transportation authorities on Friday, narrowing the gap with the autonomous driving business in the US.

The authorities pose strict safety standards on the companies intending to run autonomous driving trials. Companies must insure each trial vehicle for 5 million yuan ($716,866) of liability auto insurance, or provide a 5 million yuan of compensation guarantee. They also need to make sure that the vehicles can be switched from autopilot to manual mode at any time.

Before the autonomous driving vehicles are allowed onto the public roads in Beijing, they are subject to trials within designated areas. In 2018, a total of 56 autonomous driving vehicles from eight companies drove 153,600 kilometers on the trial areas in Beijing. 

China's growing industry of autonomous driving is fast expanding to narrow the gap with the US. Prior to Beijing, several cities have run autonomous vehicle tests. Guangzhou, capital city of South China's Guangdong Province, introduced its regulations for autonomous driving tests back in April 2018.

In September of this year, Shanghai also started trials of autonomous vehicles on the road. In September, the ride hailing company DiDi announced that it plans to launch its robo-taxi service in Shanghai as soon as 2020, and will expand to overseas business in 2021.

In the US, there are more than 1,400 autonomous vehicles on the road as of June, according to a report by techcrunch.com. More than 80 companies are running the tests across 36 US states.