Smart expressway in E China’s Shandong guarantees convenient, safe travel experience

The Tai’an-Zaozhuang section of the Beijing-Taipei Expressway, which is the first pilot smart expressway project located in east China’s Shandong Province, has achieved the precise dispatching and management of vehicles through the application of various advanced technologies.

Photo shows a section of Beijing-Taipei Expressway in Shandong Province. (Photo/Qilu Evening News)

A pole has been erected every 200 meters on both sides of the expressway. On the pole, a tiny device is installed to transmit real-time traffic information to Internet-connected vehicles running along the road, which can thus assist drivers in performing their driving tasks.

Li Tao, deputy manager of the transport engineering department of the Shandong Hi-Speed Construction Management Group Co., Ltd., introduced that a total of 182 high-definition surveillance cameras, 15 sets of omnidirectional millimeter-wave radar sensors, and 287 sets of directional millimeter-wave radar sensors, which together can collect road traffic information in real-time, have been installed.

Equipped with a smart parking system, the Ningyang expressway service area located in Ningyang county, Tai’an city is a smart service area along the Beijing-Taipei Expressway, introduced Ji Yang, head of the science and technology information department of the Shandong High Speed Service Development Group Co., Ltd.

The expressway service area incorporates such functions as shopping, fuel filling, car washing, and contactless and frictionless payments, among others. “We employ various smart devices in an attempt to offer customized services to car owners and deliver a better travel experience for them,” said Ji.

On the weekend, a man surnamed Wang, who works in Tai’an city, went back to his home in Qufu city via the Beijing-Taipei Expressway. While he was driving on the road, a malfunction occurred with his car, and so he had to pull over.

Meanwhile, an alarm was triggered at a smart monitoring and control center operated by the Beijing-Taipei Expressway, with the illegal parking maneuver conducted by Wang as a result of the vehicle malfunction being reported to the center immediately after it was detected. In less than 10 minutes after they received a notification from the smart monitoring and control center, road management staff members arrived at the site and towed Wang’s car to a nearby exit.

“In the past, we monitored traffic conditions on the expressway by checking the cameras. This was laborious yet less efficient,” said Chen Yu, deputy director of the smart monitoring and control center operated by the Beijing-Taipei Expressway under the Shandong Hi-Speed Company Limited.

“Our platform can monitor traffic on the road with an accuracy of several seconds thanks to the use of computer algorithms. It can automatically detect problems and trigger alarms, and can thus help improve the efficiency of our work,” Chen introduced.

The smart monitoring and control platform is also able to forecast the weather and take responsive measures in a timely manner. “We’ve installed environmental sensors, which can detect the environmental conditions along every kilometer of the road, as well as monitoring over 10 meteorological indicators,” said Lyu Xinjian, head of the renovation, extension, and construction office of the Tai’an-Zaozhuang section of the Beijing-Taipei Expressway.

There are more than 30 types of application scenarios for smart technologies that can be found along the Tai’an-Zaozhuang section of the Beijing-Taipei Expressway. “We employ the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), 5G, big data, and artificial intelligence, among other technologies, to realize the accurate predication and efficient control of the traffic along the expressway,” introduced Lyu.