https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/162815269314648.html

August 5, the 202,1 Shell Finance Summer Online Summit, themed "Digital Economy: The Road to the Future" kicked off. Liu Chao, vice president of Traffic Control Technology Co., Ltd. (TCT for short, 688015.SH), depicted a scene of the future of smart rail transit at the summit.

He said: “to take a rail transit, you may enter the station without interruption by non-inductive security check. Passengers can also get more information upon arrival at the platform, such as the arrival time of the next train, location of first-aid equipment, and the time spent to reach each station along the line, etc. Presently, the rail transit only makes full use of its transport capacity during the morning and evening peaks. In the future, will it be possible to use the idle capacity of rail transit for freight transport during flat-peak periods to relieve the pressure of road transport? If you think more, there may be customized compartments, such as one for conference or for gym, etc. After all, more and consumers are willing to pay for customized services."

How long will it take to make the scenario come true? Technological development is a fast curve to go upward. Customized compartments are expected to be implemented within five years, Liu Chao believes.

The government should strengthen the support to science and technology enterprises to develop from 0 to 1.

TCT is an overall solution provider of rail transit industry, delivering full life-cycle butler services. It was registered among the first batch of companies listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in July 2019.

We have scientific research and innovation genes inherently, Liu Chao said at the summit. When building the Beijing Yizhuang Line in 2010, our idea was very simple. It was to get rid of the foreign monopoly and grasp the train operation control system in our own hands. But later, we became aware that there is a massive rail transit market in China and it develops at a high speed. We must make good use of this market to cultivate the industry, or we will miss the opportunity for ever.

As an innovative high-tech enterprise, TCT was also confronted with long R&D cycle and high investment. How to break the situation? Enterprises must take into account the characteristics of their industry and examine whether the technological direction is correct. If the direction is wrong, we will never have chance to turn around, Liu Chao believes. Government should also strengthen the support (from 0 to 1) to enterprises in their early period of development. Enterprises should be enabled to participate in demonstration projects and major special projects, where they can put into practice their research result in the laboratory. The investment into research would be increased as long as the enterprise have made rational profits. With the snowball effect, the economy has entered the positive fast lane. On the contrary, when the research results are not applied practically for long, enterprises could not get appropriate returns on investment, they will not be able to continue to put investment in scientific research, consequently falling into a vicious circle.

Beijing is projected to implement customized subways in smart rail transit in the future.

Recently, we feel sorry for the passengers who are trapped or killed in subways due to a sudden rainstorm in Zhengzhou. Could smart rail transit prevent occurrence of similar incidents?

"Similar incidents are available. Big data, the Internet of Things, and cloud platforms will make the rail transit more sensitive to the environment. When the ponding water reaches a certain level, an advice would be given to stop train operations. "Liu Chao also answered this question at the event.

At present, we have seen the application of several new technologies in the field of rail transit. For instance, concerning transportation technology, the control system applied in the first autonomous and fully automatic operation line of Beijing subway was supplied by TCT. This system was also adopted for 160 km/h Beijing-Daxing International Airport Line, Liu Chao said. With regard to cloud platform applications, we built the first cloud platform in Hohhot for urban rail transit. The current scheduling is fixed. If more data and artificial intelligence technology are available, is it possible to achieve optimized allocation of resources? Even customized travels, just like the existing customized bus, can the subway be customized? With the development of technology, all of these could be realized in Beijing smart rail transit in the future.

Digital transformation creates more opportunities for traditional practitioners

What is worth mentioning that Liu Chao also answered the question "whether new technologies and new business patterns will lead to unemployment of traditional employees?" at today's summit.

He believes, new technologies and new business patterns will not deprive the jobs of traditional practitioners. Taking the automatic driving in the rail transit field for instance, although driverless train operation is realized and manual operation by drivers is no longer needed, drivers can transfer posts to serve passengers. Our technologies would offer chances to free the traditional practitioners from simple and repeated work.

Drivers operating the rail transit trains are very laborious, they usually change shift after two or three hours' driving. Actually, they could work on planned works, like making operation rules. Specialized talents are also needed for dispatching. It is witnessed that the efficiency is enhanced as with digital transformation. Regardless of later expansion of more lines, no more person will be needed. The large quantity of repetitive traditional work is taken place by the intelligent system, which enables current staff to complete more work via the upper-layer system. I believe that digital transformation is bound to improve the opportunities both in quantity and quality, but not taking their jobs away. Chao stated.