A driverless car is ready for public road testing at the Shawen area in Guiyang National High-tech Industrial Development Zone -- the first public road testing area for driverless cars in Guiyang province. [Photo/gog.cn]

The city of Guiyang set up the Shawen area in Guiyang National High-tech Industrial Development Zone (Guiyang HIDZ) as the first public road testing area for driverless cars in the province, according to local media reports on Dec 2.

The driverless test area in Guiyang HIDZ, which is located in the capital city of southwestern Guizhou province, has impressive dimensions.

The total length of the ring road in the test area is about 25 kilometers -- mainly including 21 main roads such as Baijin Avenue, Chuangzhu Road and Tongcheng South Road, with a total test mileage of about 115 km.

In addition, the test area includes main functional test areas such as an expressway, urban road, rural road, R&D management and debugging area.

These cover the complete range of road systems inf Guizhou such as expressways, bridges, tunnels and urban simulation systems such as streets, signs, and signal lights.

Officials said there are more than 100 test units and more than 30 application scenarios in the area, supporting a maximum of 60 test vehicles per day.

They said the setting up of an automatic driving public road test area promotes the development of a driverless auto industry and a big data industry.

It will also attract more global driverless-related industry test companies to come and work in Guiyang HIDZ, as well as greatly promoting the development of local high-end manufacturing and the real economy.