Green momentum fuels sustainable mobility

Building a safe, convenient, efficient, green, economical, inclusive, and resilient sustainable transportation system is an important measure to support the high-quality development of the economy and society, and realize the vision of "people enjoy their travel and goods flow smoothly". Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the development driven by scientific and technological innovation in the field of transportation has been further promoted, the level of green and low-carbon development has been steadily improved, and the low-altitude economy has grown rapidly, adding new momentum to the development of sustainable transportation.

The application of new technologies has been effectively expanded

The Global Sustainable Transport Summit (2024) was recently held in Beijing, where representatives from government departments, enterprises and academia from different countries offered suggestions and suggestions for sustainable transport development. Song Zhiyong, director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said at the forum that at present, the new generation of information technology has had a revolutionary impact on the process of world transportation modernization and is profoundly changing the way people travel. "Mainland China has made breakthroughs in key technologies such as autonomous driving, intelligent traffic management, smart logistics, and smart construction."

According to the 2023 China Sustainable Transportation Development Report, with the effective expansion of the application of new technologies, the intelligence of transportation equipment in mainland China has improved. The development of CR450 EMUs has achieved phased results, and the first large-scale cruise ship made in China has been officially delivered. China's self-developed civil aircraft C919 was officially put into commercial operation, and ARJ21 achieved large-scale operation.

At present, the mainland has achieved centimeter-level accurate positioning of autonomous driving technology vehicles, the first domestic autonomous navigation container merchant ship "Zhifei" has carried out 27,000 nautical miles of trial operation, crawling robots, intelligent road inspection vehicles and other intelligent facilities and equipment have been put into application in the field of intelligent construction, intelligent traffic management technology to achieve real-time monitoring of the transportation network, optimize traffic flow, improve transportation efficiency.

"The application of artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and other technologies in the field of civil aviation has great potential." Wu Rongxin, deputy general manager of China Southern Airlines Group Co., Ltd., said that through artificial intelligence and big data, routes can be intelligently planned, and flight paths can be optimized, effectively shortening flight time, and ultimately achieving the effect of energy conservation and emission reduction.

Zhang Jun, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and secretary of the Party Committee of Beijing Institute of Technology, believes that the overall trend of the development of the transportation industry is smart transportation. It is necessary to establish future transportation characterized by digital perception, ubiquitous interconnection and intelligent services through the integration of a new generation of information technology, so as to better create safe, convenient, efficient, green and economical sustainable transportation.

Wang Ning, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission, said that in terms of perceptibility in the field of transportation, Beijing has made an overall traffic QR code assignment, forming "a set of codes, a cloud, and a network". By using data to dispatch and monitor public transportation, it helps public transportation run smoothly, and at the same time, data is shared and opened to the public to help plan their trips.

The green and low-carbon transformation is progressing in an orderly manner

"At present, China's transportation industry is implementing the 'dual carbon' strategy, actively promoting the integrated development of transportation and energy, strengthening planning and policy coordination, improving the standard and specification system, innovating key technologies and equipment, accelerating the development and utilization of new energy along transportation infrastructure, promoting new energy substitution of transportation vehicles, improving the transportation new energy supply system, and orderly promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of the transportation industry." Fei Dongbin, member of the Party Leadership Group of the Ministry of Transport of China, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the State Railway Administration, said.

In recent years, positive progress has been made in the green and low-carbon transformation of the mainland's transportation sector. By the end of 2023, the number of new energy vehicles in China exceeded 20.4 million, and nearly 8.6 million charging infrastructure had been built. In the field of railways, the proportion of railway electrification in the country has reached 73.8%.

China is promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of transportation by promoting the construction of green transportation infrastructure. As the world's first "smart zero-carbon" terminal, the intelligent container terminal in Section C of Tianjin Port's Beijiang Port Area was officially put into operation in 2021. At the scene of the zero-carbon terminal, the reporter saw an unmanned artificial intelligence transportation robot loaded with containers driving smoothly and orderly in the field. According to the relevant person in charge of Tianjin Port, the kinetic energy of these robots all comes from the "green electricity" of the terminal. At present, the zero-carbon terminal has a total of 5 wind turbines and 16,000 square meters of photovoltaic panels.

"At present, the depth and breadth of the integration of new energy and transportation in the mainland are still expanding, and there is a long way to go for green energy to drive sustainable transportation." Lu Junling, chief economist of the National Energy Administration, said that the integration of transportation and energy should focus on the innovation of key technologies, and carry out technical research in key demand directions such as long-range power batteries, fast charging piles, electric heavy trucks, and hydrogen fuel cells in accordance with the idea of integration of production, education, research and application. At the same time, we will actively promote the research, demonstration and large-scale development of wind and solar hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and transportation, biomass fuel, and DC distribution network, and smooth the economic realization path of new energy application in the transportation field.

The low-altitude economy is growing rapidly

At present, the low-altitude economy, based on traditional general aviation and the new UAV industry, is booming on the mainland. By the end of 2023, there will be 689 general aviation enterprises and 451 general airports in mainland China. According to estimates, the scale of the mainland's low-altitude economy exceeded 500 billion yuan last year, and it is expected to reach 2 trillion yuan in 2030.

Song Zhiyong said that with the continuous expansion of application scenarios of new technologies in low-altitude fields such as mainland drones, the low-altitude economy is further developing in the direction of unmanned, intelligent, collaborative and green.

The development direction of low-altitude economy coincides with the connotation of sustainable transportation, and its rapid growth is expected to become a new driving force to promote the development of sustainable transportation. At present, many provinces across the country are planning to make arrangements and vigorously develop low-altitude economy.

Li Zhong, vice governor of Anhui Province, said that Anhui has basically formed a low-altitude industrial cluster with the general aviation industry as the main body and the UAV industry as the support. In the fields of urban management, public services, and cultural and tourism consumption, Anhui has launched a number of market-oriented application scenarios, such as drone medical material transportation, emergency rescue and disaster relief air channels, and takeaway drone delivery. Hefei, Wuhu and other places have opened 20 drone postal logistics routes, and more than 10,000 helicopter low-altitude tours have been carried out in Huangshan, Lu'an and other places this summer.

In recent years, Xpeng Motors has actively explored the creation of low-altitude travel products and expanded low-altitude economic application scenarios. Chen Han, Vice President of Xpeng Motors, introduced the world's first split flying car launched by Xpeng Motors, the Land Aircraft Carrier, which can realize the automatic separation and combination of land traveling and flying bodies through one-button operation.

Next, with the continuous expansion of low-altitude economic application scenarios and the emergence of new technologies, more solutions will be provided for emergency rescue, logistics and distribution.

Source: Economic Daily