The first legislation for completely unmanned driving took effect in Shanghai's Pudong New Area on Wednesday.

Every day, more than 15,000 container trucks pass across a cross-sea bridge, the only connection between the Yangshan Deep Water Port and the rest of Shanghai. Recently, a new fleet of autonomous trucks have been running on the bridge.

"The autonomous fleet can drive with just 20 meters between vehicles, which will increase the capacity of the bridge," said Zhou Gan, a system testing engineer at the Autonomous Driving Center under Shanghai Utopilot Technology, developer of the trucks. "Our operational autonomous trucks now run 24 hours a day."

While the legislation is new, the autonomous trucks have been operating for three years now, during which they have transported almost 170,000 containers between the Yangshan Port and the container yard in Lingang.

In China's autonomous vehicles, it's common to see a safety officer in the driver's seat to monitor operation and take action in case there is an emergency, but there are no people in the unmanned trucks traveling on the bridge.

Utopilot started using unmanned trucks in part of its fleet at the end of December, following years of research and development and millions of kilometers of tests.

"In the past, autonomous driving was a matter of addition. Hiring a safety officer is usually more expensive than hiring a traditional driver, which leads to higher costs for our vehicles. But to make it commercially viable, we had to do subtraction, which means reducing the labor," said Wang Rui, CEO of Shanghai Utopilot Technology. "And once it is commercially viable, everyone can make a profit, making it possible for the industry to grow."

Wang said his company aims to have the whole fleet fully unmanned – with just one safety officer in a remote-control room – in the first half of this year. Presently, one person is monitoring five trucks at a time, but in the second half of this year, one person will be able to monitor 50 trucks.

In 2018, Shanghai issued the first license plates in China for Intelligent Connected Vehicle Testing. Since then, the industry has been driving ahead at full speed with self-driving trucks, taxis and buses sprouting up.

But for the past five years, the whole market has been paying close attention to safety and accident liability before the self-driving vehicles enter truly unmanned commercial operations. Therefore, the new legislation marks a big new step.

"The legislation marks a key turning point for the autonomous driving industry from technology testing to commercial operations," Wang said. "We are testing autonomous transport covering the entire route from Lingang's collection and distribution center to the Donghai Bridge and all the way to the fourth phase of Yangshan Port."

"More importantly, we will promote this model to the whole country, and to the rest of the world. We have made it an important task this year to extend our services to areas like steel factories, logistics parks and mines."

The new legislation for the first time lays down standards for unmanned driving accident liability. It also highlights data safety, saying data generated from autonomous driving must be uploaded to a government platform.

"The legislation makes guaranteeing the safety of the technology a company's responsibility. If something unexpected occurs, the technology must be able to avoid an accident or minimize its impact," said Wang Jingchuan, deputy director of the Automation Department at the School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. "The new data safety rule also helps avoid the disclosure of data regarding the country or other road safety information."

Wang said the new legislation will act as a catalyst for unlocking potential improvements in autonomous driving technology.

"In the future, autonomous driving technology should be able to adapt to blockages in the roads, and the vehicles should be capable of safe and stable driving in areas without lane markings or with a lot of pedestrians," said Wang.

The municipal government is now planning to announce the first group of open roads specifically for self-driving operations in the Pudong New Area.