Vehicles ready for self-driving tests.File photo: Xinhua

Shenzhen city, one of China's most innovative technology hubs in South China's Guangdong Province, published a set of draft regulations on administrating intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs) on Tuesday, which will help supervise and boost the running of ICVs within the city, which also is a special economic zone. 

ICVs is a notion that vehicles realize self-driving and the traffic efficiency will be greatly improved through the in-built advanced sensors, controllers and actuators, as well as the in-vehicle and inter-vehicle communication networks. 

The draft laws clarified regulations and rules on the road experimentation of ICVs, admission into the approved ICVs catalogue, license appliance and registration, driving, and data protection. 

The approved ICVs that are eligible for automated driving should go on road with drivers sitting behinds the steering, while those ICVs that are highly or completely capable of autonomous driving do not need a physical human driver. 

The trial operation of ICVs is speeding up in some major Chinese cities, thanks to the government's push including the promotion of the new type of vehicles in traffic development blueprints. 

Xiao Yaqing, minister of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) indicate publishing the draft regulations on the approval of ICVs at an appropriate time in 2021, during last year's world ICVs conference held in Beijing.   

China's central government endowed Shenzhen city the rights in pioneering legislation work on key new industrial operations, including artificial intelligence and self-driving vehicles.  

Global Times