Mogo Auto
Robotaxis are one type of self-driving vehicle expected to be on China’s city streets by September. Credit: Business Wire.

Autonomous driving technology start-up Mogo Auto Intelligence and Telemetics Information Technology is conducting an intelligent transportation project in China.

The project in Hengyang City, Hunan Province, involves a CNY500m ($77.3m) investment.

Featuring several major highways and railway crossings, Hengyang City is one of China’s main transportation hubs.

With a designed mileage of 200km, the project is said to be the largest L4-level autonomous driving project carried out worldwide.

A 38km intelligent road stretch has been installed for the project, to be used in September during the first phase of work on the project.

Around 500 self-driving vehicles, including robobuses, robotaxis, self-driving shuttle buses and other public service vehicles, are expected to be on city streets by then.

The Hengyang project will involve complex traffic conditions, with the autonomous vehicles to be deployed on real city roads covering main streets, city centre area, tunnels, flyovers and rural roads without road surface marks.

According to local media reports, the company will provide a ‘one-stop solution covering intelligent road construction, self-driving vehicle upgrade and smart city transportation platform operation in Cloud management’.

Mogo Auto also intends to offer a Smart City Transportation Brain for real-time monitoring and overall scheduling to meet citizens transportation demands in an efficient manner. It expects this to lower traffic accidents or congestion.

According to Mogo Auto’s website, the company was founded in 2017 as an autonomous driving technology and operating service provider.

The company is involved in testing and operating self-driving vehicle fleets in Beijing, Jiangsu, Hunan Province and other regions.

In February 2021, Baidu introduced a multi-modal autonomous driving mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) platform to provide transportation services powered by artificial intelligence (AI) in Guangzhou, China.

A fleet of Apollo Robotaxis and Robobuses, as well as three other model types of autonomous vehicles, were involved in the initiative.