Merc tests autonomy on China's mean streets

PEDESTRIAN crossings on freeways, separate speed limits for each lane, road signs with Chinese characters – traffic in China is radically different.

Which is why the Mercedes-Benz ‘Intelligent World Drive’, which started at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September with a self-driving S-Class sedan, is now in Shanghai, battling some of the most complex traffic situations in the world, including two, three and four-wheeled vehicles, and huge numbers of pedestrians.

In China, lane markings can have different or even multiple meanings; what look like pedestrian crossings on freeways are actually minimum following distance indicators.

Parking bays come in varying shapes and sizes and many have obstacles that are difficult for sensors to detect.

All of which shows how important global real-world data is on the road to automated driving; China is the world’s biggest automotive market, making the Mercedes R&D centre in Beijing a crucial component in creating self-driving cars.

In the past seven years, 175 MercedesBenz test mules have covered 9.5 million kilometres in Europe, the US, China, Australia and South Africa, making more than 1.2 million test measurements in real-life traffic situations.

And on the ‘Intelligent World Drive’, the self-driving S-Class will tackle traffic situations on five continents.

The first leg focused on freeway travel (Germany is, after all, the only country with no-limit autobahns) and bumper-to-bumper city driving.

The second leg, in Shanghai, is all about adaptability to different road rules and signage in other than latin characters.

Then the autonomous S will move to Australia to test its map-reading skills in the Outback, and to South Africa to test its ability to cope with jaywalkers (which says more about our pedestrians than it does about the car).

The Intelligent World Drive will end with a road trip from Los Angeles to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2018 – and if the autonomous S-Class can successfully cope with all those scenarios, it is probably a better driver than most humans.

Mercedes is testing automated driving functions on five continents using an S-Class based test vehicle. The car is now being put through its paces in the Chinese megalopolis of Shanghai, where traffic rules are unusual to say the least.