With the rapid development of modern society, busy, intricate and varied roads intertwine into arteries of ceaseless traffic. Each vehicle is a part of the lifeline of this city, and driving has also become a necessary skill for modern people.

Over the past 24 years, faced with complex and ever-changing business climate, Zhang Anqiang, Chairman of Duolun Technology (603528), answered the calling of the time-- "driving the new real economy with innovation". Under his leadership, Duolun uses advanced technology to empower transport applications and leverages technological innovation to solve industry pain spots, achieving people-vehicle-road collaboration and reshaping safer traffic with smarter travel.

Fusing Overseas Advanced Technology with Chinese Traffic Network

Further Industry Segmentation to Generate Bigger Business Opportunities

Mr. Zhang Anqiang was born in a wealthy and well-educated family and studied in the United States in his early years. After graduating from university in 1979, he gave up the opportunity to settle in the US and came to Hong Kong.

In 1990, Mr. Zhang came across the advanced driving simulation technology in the United States. At the time, driver training in China was in its infancy and the public’s traffic safety awareness was weak. He intuitively realized that it was a good opportunity to introduce the technology to change the driver training model. After twists and turns, he finally secured sole agency to promote American driving simulators in China and introduce overseas cutting-edge technology and advanced experience into the Chinese transportation industry, starting a new chapter for his own business.

However, a business is not all smooth sailing. Affected by changes in related policies, since 1994, the demand for product plummeted, and Zhang's business reached the bottleneck. Based on his insights from four years in the transportation industry, he immediately started to transform his business. Mr. Zhang leveraged his resources in the business, and decisively entered the field of transportation facilities. The company developed traffic signal control systems and high-efficiency energy-saving signal lights, and explored new markets.

The 1990s witnessed the planning, construction, broadening and improvement of a large number of roads. The company developed a traffic signal control system that replaced the original bulb signal lights with LED signal lights. The newly established business stood the test of the market and was quite popular among the public.

Pioneering "Electronic" Driving Test

Revolutionizing Traditional Industry through Innovation

In 1995, Nanjing Duolun Precision System Co., Ltd. was established, setting on a new path of innovative development.

Back then, the number of private cars grew significantly, stimulating the market demand for driver training and testing services. More and more people took driving test, which put tremendous strains on the original testing system. As a result, traffic authorities were troubled about how to promote scientific, fair and efficient driving tests.

Pain spots are often the first step to identify needs. In face of challenges and opportunities, Duolun Technology developed an infrared yard driving test system. It was the most powerful and accurate test system in China. Computer aided and fully automated, it replaced human judges in the tests and greatly improved assessment accuracy. In addition, Mr. Zhang also led the company in independently developing an electronic test system, the first version of the driving test software namely RET--2000.

In the past, all driving tests require human judges. But now, after electronic upgrading, the testing facilities, equipped with high-tech devices provided by Duolun Technology along with digital modeling capability, offer automatic, standardized and efficient assessment with centimeter-level accuracy. The assessment carries several advantages: first, it unifies assessment standards; second, it enables fairer and more efficient exams by reducing human subjectivity: in the past, every test vehicle needed one judge for the test, now equipped with Duolun's system, one judge can supervise multiple test vehicles remotely in real time.

Hu Meisheng, head of Coordination Department at Duolun Technology, witnessed its path of technological innovation during her 10 years of service for the company. From the launch of the first-generation driving skill test system to the later introduction of RTK satellite differential positioning, Duolun Technology has never stopped its pursuit of innovation and keeps following the market demand.

In the exhibition hall of Duolun Technology hangs visibly a bronze plaque of Research and Demonstration Base of Motor Vehicle Driving Test awarded by Research Institute for Road Safety of MPS. "To make an apt analogy, given the chance, Duolun Technology can transform any site you provided into a fully functional testing facility.” Hu said confidently.

Through unremitting efforts, Duolun Technology now owns over 70% of China’s driving test market, and nearly 90% in some provinces. Based on strong research and development capability, excellent product quality, and perfect after-sales service system, Duolun has become a leader in China’s smart driving test industry.

Cloud Driver Training Platform

Internet+, a Revolutionary Business Model

Since 2017, China's economy set on the fast track, and the driver training industry went through significant changes. Driving expands from a requirement of professional drivers to a skill needed among common people.

Chinese enterprises have entered a stage of highly automated and highly information-based management, yet the driver training industry still trails behind, applying pure manual labor and poorly informationized human-governed management system. These pain spots including low tech, high cost, inefficient training and poor training experience left the industry unable to meet market demands. Mr. Zhang summarized that "people-oriented", "aptitude-based teaching" and "high efficiency and intelligence" were the new trend of the driver training industry.

Based on online cloud platform management system and offline smart training system (smart driving simulator and robot instructor), Duolun Technology has created a new fully intelligent training system. By using the Internet technology, cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence, the company has established a national driver training ecosystem to achieve information sharing, benefit sharing and technology sharing.

Duolun Technology relies on the "three driver training applications", namely, smart driving simulator, smart robot instructor, and driver training timing and metering system, to transform traditional driver training to AI-aided training, providing trainees with customized services with less vehicle exhaust emissions. The company pioneered an innovative "smart driver training + Internet" service model. The Duolun Cloud Driver Training Platform provides one-stop cloud solutions for supervision authorities, driver training institutions, instructors and trainees. In 2018, the number of driver training Institutions, instructors and trainees registered on the Duolun Cloud Driver Training Platform increased exponentially, with 16 million annual active visitors. And revenue from smart driver training systems increased nearly four times compared to the previous year. In 2019, Nanjing Municipal Government listed our "three driver training applications” as recommended catalog for innovative product promotion in 2019.

Vision Setting the Course Ahead

Promising Smart Traffic Integration

As smart vehicles plus smart roads advance the development of vehicle-road collaboration, big data is widely used to empower urban traffic management, making traffic safer, greener, and smarter.

To this end, Duolun Technology focuses on the latest information technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data, and has developed a new generation of traffic management technologies such as smart signal control, smart management and smart operation and maintenance, and is expanding fast into important areas of smart cities including public security police service, transportation, and urban security.

With the rapid development of science and technology, Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other advanced emerging technologies will quickly integrate deeply with smart traffic. Dr. Tao Gang of Duolun Technology believes that traffic system is already capable to achieve interconnected perception, intelligent analysis, short-term prediction, and intelligent control at the regional level. He gave an example: "Drivers are familiar with the case: when passing an intersection and waiting for a green light, lanes in one direction are empty, and lanes in the other direction are still put on hold. It is not the lack of proper signal timing but the ever-changing road conditions that made traditional signal control strategies inadequate.”

Dr. Tao Gang went on: "to put it vividly, the goal is to make the traffic lights smarter, achieving automatic sensing, automatic control, and automatic release.” The intersection of Tianyin Avenue and Kejian Road pilot project solved this problem well by installing fully smart traffic lights. Compared with traditional traffic lights, smart signal lights add professional traffic detectors and edge computing devices at intersections, which can monitor vehicle types, queue length, delay time of traffic at intersections in real time with second precision. Smart traffic lights can switch to adaptive mode during normal hours, and automatically adjust the release time at intersections according to road traffic volume to avoid pointless waiting; and switch to green wave mode during peak hours to balance the spatio-temporal distribution of green wave traffic flow and reduce traffic congestion. On this basis, the company's R&D team worked with Southeast University, introducing the latest artificial intelligence technology to a new generation of "AI-aided road network diagnostic system and integrated operation platform” to continuously improve the intelligent level of the company's smart traffic products.

5G Leading the Way

Fully Engaging in Autopilot Capability Testing

Smart traffic is one of the best 5G application scenarios. Naturally, Duolun Technology leverages 5G technology to develop new businesses.

Mr. Zhang stated that the company has acquired a lot of technical achievements and application experience in the field of driver training and testing and smart traffic, and is expected to generate more application cases empowered by 5G technology. The company will accelerate technological innovation and product research and development in the fields of smart traffic, smart public security, smart security protection, and smart transportation. Base on the application of 5G technology, Duolun Technology strives to improve smart control technologies and products promoting vehicle-road collaboration for smart cities, and establish core product systems based on 5G technology, artificial intelligence and big data. The company aims to provide overall solutions and services for the construction of smart cities through multi-dimensional perception, real-time deduction, intelligent regulation and services.

With the large-scale promotion of 5G commercial networks, self-driving technology will play a more important role in the field of smart transportation. Based on years of rich practice in road mapping and modeling of driving test facilities, Duolun Technology actively participates in the construction of "National Comprehensive Smart Transportation Testing Base". Based on high-precision mapping of semi-open real public roads within 10 kilometers of the base, the company has developed mobile devices incorporating high-precision positioning and dynamic data collection for commercial vehicle testing. It has also developed core module of automated driving assessment for the integrated self-driving detection and management platform to evaluate vehicles at different levels of driving automation. Notably, the company has developed a system for the operational safety testing and evaluation management platform for intelligent connected vehicles to manage testing systems and base information and enable visualized supervision of 3D and 2D maps and surveillance videos.

Prominent Rise based on Accumulated Strength

Gold will Always Shine

The core of competition in the artificial intelligence field is the competition for talents. And tech firms are actively contesting for AI talents and building talent pipeline.

Mr. Qian Shengshan, Vice President of Duolun Technology, joined the company in 2003 and started as a front-line software engineer. Over the past decade, he grew along with the company and developed new technologies and innovative products. He led the R&D team in the development of cutting-edge key technologies, and obtained 19 authorized patents (including one invention) and two invention patent applications. The projects he presided over obtained 18 software copyrights. And he also participated in the formulation of four public security industry standards on behalf of Duolun Technology.

Mr. Lei Tianwu, a member of the Smart Industry Research Institute shows a strong interest in data mining, deep learning, and facial recognition systems. He grew fond of Duolun Technology soon after he joined the company. The assignments on traffic light recognition, driver fatigue detection, and motorcycle driving test system ignited his passion. In 2018, he participated in the Global (Nanjing) Artificial Intelligence Application Competition with four partners and won the championship for lane line detection. This team, with an average age of 26 years old, beat professional peers from Nanjing University, Southeast University and other major players, showing formidable strength.

How to recruit and keep talents? Duolun has its own set of methodology: by leveraging platform advantages, organizational training, and talent exchanges, the company taps into talent resources in universities, cultivates innovation in staff, and absorbs experts across various fields to achieve agglomeration effect. The company will continue to build, improve and innovate internal ecological system, helping talents to reach their full potential.

Innovation, Perseverance and Responsibility

Three Key Words Depicting Entrepreneurial Spirit

From the company’s original aspiration on “safe travel”, to empowering smart traffic with technological innovation, Duolun Technology has long been committed to facilitating intelligent motor vehicle driver training and testing systems and promoting innovation and industrial application of smart traffic products in China. Centered on introducing cutting-edge technology and innovation to the transportation sector, the company has gradually built core product systems such as smart driving test, smart driver training and smart traffic. Based on a business pattern focused on software and equally attentive to hardware, the company provides customers with integrated software and hardware products and solutions including driver training, driving test and intelligent transportation.

Innovation, perseverance and responsibility are the core of Mr. Zhang’s entrepreneurship. He uses these three simple words to redefine the relationship between people, vehicles and roads, and leverages the inherent driving force of technology to innovate transportation products to ensure travel safety for the public.

Innovation, perseverance and responsibility are the core of Mr. Zhang’s entrepreneurship. He uses these three simple words to redefine the relationship between people, vehicles and roads, and leverages the inherent driving force of technology to innovate transportation products to ensure travel safety for the public.