China To Launch Self-Driving Bullet Trains That Will Travel At 217 MPH

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: China will introduce the world's first driverless trains to run at speeds of up to 217 mph (350 km/h) on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway line. The automatic operation bullet trains were trialled on a section of the Beijing-Shenyang line in 2018 by the China Railway Corporation (CRC) and the system passed all safety tests. 'The bullet train can automatically depart, operate between stations and adjust the train's operation to meet its precise timetable after a single button is pressed,' a researcher from China Academy of Railway Sciences told the Sciences and Technology Daily. A driver currently performs these operations on high-speed trains.

For the first 10 years of the high-speed ATO trains, an attendant will still be deployed on board to ensure nothing goes wrong. After that, the trains will be totally driverless. Experts say this should improve safety long-term. 'An automatic driving system could greatly improve the safety of trains which run on high-speed railways, compared with human drivers who may have sudden health problems or disregard safety precautions during driving,' Sun Zhang, a railway expert and professor at Shanghai Tongji University, told the Global Times. The Beijing-Zhangjiakou Line is currently being constructed for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, 'to enable easy travel between Beijing and the Winter Olympic Village in 50 minutes,' the report says.

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