China successfully trials driverless freight train

In a bid to boost logistics efficiency, the country has now successfully tested a driverless coal train on an approximately 150 kilometre stretch of railways.

The test train transported 108 wagons with coal. It had a total length of 1,300 metres and weighed 10,800 tonnes, according to Chinese media.

The test, China’s first “smart heavy-haul railway transportation paradigm”, works with a centralised station control system and an intelligent driving system, and was performed on an unmanned heavy-haul train on the railway connecting North China’s Hebei and East China’s Shandong provinces.

The successful project marked a key milestone in advancing from automated to unmanned heavy-haul railway technology. Comprising 108 cars with a total length of nearly 1,300 meters and a total weight of 10,800 tons, the test train travelled from Huanghua city in Hebei to Dongying city in Shandong in two and a half hours on Thursday, according to China Media Group (CMG).

The test route is primarily used for coal transport. Once unmanned driving is widely adopted, the average operation speed of nation’s trains will be increased by 1.7 kilometres per hour, while the average traction energy consumption will decrease by 2.9 percent, significantly boosting transportation efficiency of China’s west-to-east coal transportation.

Previously, the unmanned train technology was primarily used in urban rail systems both in China and abroad and has not yet been applied on a large scale on heavy-haul transport railways.

Three key technologies of the test train – comprehensive support and simulation, remote control and autonomous driving, and integrated safety monitoring from air, space, and ground – fill critical manufacturing gaps in China.