PRESS RELEASE: Guangzhou, also known as Canton, is the third largest city in China after Beijing and Shanghai. In 2020, China Mobile, Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau, ZTE and over 10 other industry partners joined together and announced the world’s first 5G smart transportation city in Guangzhou.

Over the past two years, the project has been benefiting not only the 20 million people in Guangzhou City but also the various industries and the government agencies. The transportation systems included are buses, subways, and high-speed trains, which are now enjoying improved automated operation and maintenance, more efficient dispatching and management, and improved passenger satisfaction.

It is the world’s first 5G smart transportation city with all city’s transportation systems involved, comprehensive and beneficial to the entire city transportation system ecosystem. No other 5G transportation project has been on such a large scale and fruitful in making people’s life better. These provide examples for digital transformation of urban planning and governance.

Promoting Digital Transformation of the Transportation Industry

The transportation industry has now improved operation efficiency, safety, security, customer satisfaction and better business results.

As the industry’s first high-speed rail detects HD smart eyes, the two-minute machine vision and AI replace two man-hour detections. The failure rate is reduced by 20%, and the maintenance cost is reduced by 20%. The first 5G high-speed railway with a super-line-of-sight distance of early warning with at least 8km is used for real-time monitoring and AI image processing, identifying risk factors and raising alarms automatically. The first 5G high-speed railway with mass data storage improves the work efficiency by 10 times. The average daily processing capacity of the industry’s first 5G intelligent railway marshalling station is 13,500 vehicles, increasing efficiency by 70% and reducing manpower by 25%.

The industry’s first 5G smart subway, including the industry’s first 5G subway train, the industry’s first 5G high-precision positioning subway, and the industry’s first 5G private network slicing application subway. The full-scene intelligent subway service has been realized; as a result, the operation efficiency has been improved by 20%, saving more than 30% of manpower for the on-site customer service and monitoring position in the station hall.

As the industry’s first 5G intelligent bus dispatching system, the scheduling of bus lines is shortened from one week to one day. In addition, the system achieves the matching of passenger traffic to improve the traffic of 10%. Also, the industry’s first 5G road patrol improves the risk detection rate of the Nansha Bridge by more than 65%.

In addition, the health and occupational safety of employees of transportation companies have been greatly improved by 5G. For example, high-speed railway vehicle repair personnel, tunnel repair personnel, and road and bridge preventive maintenance personnel can view the machine test results in a comfortable monitoring room. They do not need to tolerate high temperatures or cold weather, and do not need to repeatedly bend over the waist or climb into the bottom of the vehicle any more. They can now avoid going deep into the tunnel or high up the bridge, which greatly reduces the risk of work injury.

20 Million Population’s Travel Experience Changed

This project has changed the travel experience of the vast majority of people in a city with more than 20 million people.

Comfortable and time-saving: The 5G network-based app “Traveling” has provided streamlined travel service for 10 million users. Passengers can query the bus arrival time, whether seats are available or not, and whether traffic is crowded. With real-time data, the all-in-one 5G security check machine enables passengers and luggage to pass through the gate quickly, shortening the average turnstile duration during peak hours by 20%. The bus control center can monitor the operational status of buses in real time and flexibly adjust the transport capacity, and shorten the waiting time of passengers.

Safe: 5G high-speed rail ultra-sight distance early warning system, 5G digital tunnel, bus status data monitoring, safe driving early warning and other applications all guarantee travel safety. In case of emergency, the AR security glasses on subways can quickly compare data and raise alarms, thus speeding up the handling of security incidents.

Enjoyable: With the application of the indoor SuperMIMO technology, passengers can enjoy the uplink bandwidth exceeding 750Mbps in the subway carriage at a distance of up to 160 km. In addition, after getting on the vehicle, passengers can access the intranet of 5G mobile phones without perception, and enjoy local on-board movies and the latest information in the “Life on HSR”(High Speed Railway) and “Tencent Video” apps(Tencent being the largest social media company in China). The metro positioning system can be interconnected with third-party apps to provide accurate navigation, shopping, and catering information for passengers. 

Guangzhou 5G Smart Transportation City Model Replication

Up to now, the Guangzhou 5G Smart Transportation City project has been awarded several national awards and formed multiple industry standards. The success of the project has triggered dozens of cities to replicate and promote similar systems.

Smart transportation has huge business potential in the future. In the next few years, we hope to usher in brand-new passenger services and a thorough change in the transportation field. In the next few years, the smart transportation industry is expected to grow by 130 billion US dollars by 2024.

Guangzhou, leading the trend of 5G Smart Transportation City, will keep the innovation spirit to continue with better transportation solutions to benefit both consumers and the industry as a whole.