China Unveils First 41 AI Transport Scenarios to Accelerate Sector Integration

China's Ministry of Transport and four other government departments have released an initial batch of 41 typical artificial intelligence application scenarios, supported by targeted construction guidelines, to accelerate the integration of AI across national transit networks. The broader initiative identifies 860 breakthrough scenarios spanning railways, highways, waterways, civil aviation, and postal services across ten core domains. Officials aim to foster new infrastructure, advanced equipment, and innovative service models by 2030, leveraging large-scale real-world testbeds to drive dual development for AI developers and transport operators.

The policy establishes clear technological roadmaps and market demand for autonomous driving, large foundation models, and embodied robotics. By opening state-backed transit infrastructure as commercial proving grounds, Chinese authorities seek to lower operational costs, enhance system safety, and foster domestic industrial clusters in applied artificial intelligence.

China's Ministry of Transport, alongside four other central government departments, has released an initial batch of 41 typical application scenarios alongside technical construction guidelines to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence across the nation's transport networks, according to a departmental briefing reported by People's Daily. The release elaborates on the Action Plan for the Innovative Application of 'AI + Transportation' Scenarios, originally issued in June. The plan sets a target for 2030, aiming to cultivate a range of new AI-integrated infrastructure, equipment, operating models, and industrial ecosystems across rail, road, water, aviation, and postal systems. According to Xu Wenqiang, director of the Ministry of Transport's Science and Technology Department, officials identified 860 initial breakthrough scenarios across infrastructure, transit equipment, logistics services, and sector governance. These target ten primary fields, including autonomous driving, smart highways, intelligent railways, civil aviation, postal logistics, and multimodal freight. Regulators outlined two core priorities guiding the scenario selection. The first is public service delivery, incorporating real-time traffic dispatch, integrated ticketing, highway fog warning systems, and smart cold-chain monitoring. The second is industrial empowerment, designed to open large-scale operational environments to commercial AI developers. Highlighted commercial cases include autonomous freight driving, automated port scheduling, and railway health monitoring. Several pilot projects demonstrate how these frameworks are functioning in practice. On the Jingxiong Expressway connecting Beijing and the Xiong'an New Area, operators partnered with Baidu AI Cloud to deploy foundation models that achieve an incident recognition accuracy rate above 95 percent, alongside automated fog-warning smart lighting and toll robots. The expressway also passed mid-term inspection for an autonomous heavy-duty truck project, completing over 30,000 kilometers of testing with mixed 'one-leads-two' platooning formations. In postal logistics, an intelligent overhaul at ZTO Express's Wuhan sorting hub linked transit planning algorithms with smart sorting hardware. According to reported figures, the hub processed an average of 75 million outgoing parcels per month in the first half of the year, maintaining an on-time transit rate above 94 percent while reducing labor costs by more than 40 percent. Ministry officials stated that regulators will continue tracking technology trends to roll out subsequent scenario batches and technical guidelines on an ongoing basis.