Zhenglin Feng, China vice-minister of transport. International Transport Forum photoChina’s transport authorities have announced that certain commerical vehicles in parts of the nation are now required to use the homegrown BeiDou GNSS system, Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, reported on Monday (January 14, 2013).
China’s transport authorities have announced that certain commerical vehicles in parts of the nation are now required to use the homegrown BeiDou GNSS system, Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, reported on Monday (January 14, 2013).
On December 27, China declared the system officially ready for operation in the Asia-Pacific region and stated its aims to take a share of the GPS-dominated domestic market, according to the Xinhua report. An earlier Xinhua article quoted Ran Chengqi, director of China Satellite Navigation Office, as predicting that BeiDou will take "70 to 80 percent of the now GPS-dominated domestic market by 2020."
Under the transport ministry’s decree, all tour coaches, long-distance scheduled buses, and vehicles for transporting dangerous goods, should install the BDS service when they replace or upgrade their on-board navigation terminals. The directive covers the provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui, Hebei, Shaanxi, Shandong, Hunan, and Guizhou, as well as Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Tianjin Municipality.
Heavy trucks and semi-trailers in these regions should install the BDS service when entering the transportation market, said Zhenglin Feng, vice-minister of transport. The ministry aims to have 80 percent of vehicles in these categories installed with the BeiDou service by the end of March, according to Feng.
Also, all new vehicles in these categories produced in the nine regions should be installed with the BDS service before they leave the factory, Xinhua reported. Vehicles without the system will not receive transportation permits, Feng said.
Passenger vehicles in rural areas are also encouraged to install BeiDou-capable equipment. China plans to build seven application systems and a supporting platform, and install 80,000 Beidou terminals in the nine regions within two years, the vice-minister said.
BeiDou began providing services to civilian users in China and surrounding areas in the Asia-Pacific region at the end of last year.
In recent years, Russia’s transport authorities have issued similar mandates for using that country’s GNSS system, GLONASS, on commercial vehicles.
