Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

The close relationship between traffic and life seems to be traced back to the beginning of human civilization. The Sumerians invented the Wheel, a tool that still appears in our lives today, leaving this nation a vital milestone in the history of human civilization. When humans are unable to escape the hunting range of wild animals due to their physiological limits, wheels can help them go to safer places.

Our quality of life is closely related to our geographical location. Living in barren land often means hunger. However, the transportation system expands the scope of human activities and slows down the uneven distribution of production resources. Therefore, we have known for thousands of years that the more developed the transportation is, the more efficient the transmission of production resources will be.

However, with the construction of transportation facilities becoming more and more perfect, the development of digital economy also tells us that the consideration of traffic is not only static roads, but also dynamic information. such as whether you can immediately know the road congestion, access to location information, road information and so on. For example, the vigorous development of O2O is based on the premise of efficient transmission of information. We seem to feel that there will be a tool as important as the wheel on the future development of the digital economy.

As for what this tool is, the 2019 Baidu Map Ecology Conference held in Beijing recently gave us an answer.

Re-examine the Map: the faithful Recorder of the physical World

After thousands of years of development, the ability of "wheel" has reached a certain threshold, regardless of rubber or steel, no matter which kind of power system is combined, the results achieved have been obvious. In other words, it has been very difficult for us to improve traffic efficiency through changes in transport infrastructure. However, digital technology is still possible, and map products are the aggregators of them. Through map navigation, we can clearly know the time and money cost to get to our destination, and choose the most suitable way to travel. All this is also a huge improvement in traffic efficiency. One of the most typical scenarios is that today, when we choose to drive on North American roads, although these roads are well laid out, drivers still feel "inconvenient" because of network signal problems. some roads cannot be navigated online using maps.

Pointing out the way is only the most basic skill of map products. A new generation of technology-driven artificial intelligence maps such as Baidu Maps can also bring more convenience to people's daily transportation. Like an intelligent voice assistant built with powerful voice interaction capabilities, drivers no longer need to divert attention to interact with map products. Or the walking AR navigation function, which allows users to find out the direction of walking more clearly. And through big data and AI calculation and forecast of traffic flow, so that users reduce the time stuck on the road. All this means that the improvement of traffic efficiency has evolved from relying on the physical world to relying on AI technology.

Aware of this change, we can re-examine the map product.

We can take a look at a group of data displayed by Baidu Maps at the ecological conference: at present, Baidu Maps has achieved data capabilities such as more than 120 billion daily location service requests, daily average track mileage of 2 billion kilometers, total POI global coverage of 150 million, intelligent voice assistant cumulative users of more than 300 million, road mileage of 9.4 million kilometers, panoramic pictures and other data capabilities. It can be seen that the map products carried in everyone's mobile phone have become the digital mapping of the physical world. It can tell us the location of buildings, roads and vehicles, and make real-time updates. At the same time, map products also have the ability to drive the physical world, through the calculation of traffic and people on the road.

From this point of view, map products are actually wormholes that connect the physical world and the digital world, transmitting information between the two worlds.

What do you want to output to the physical world when you open the Baidu map of wormholes?

The wheel invented by the Sumerians continues to lead mankind to places with more resources, and today's map products that open wormholes between the two worlds can pry up the operational efficiency of the real world through the transformation of transportation.

Of course the answer is yes. At this time, we can focus on Baidu Maps. As the leader of AI in China and even the world, Baidu has given its products comprehensive AI technical support. At this time, the existence of Baidu map can better help Baidu export AI capabilities to the physical world.

We take the following common scenarios as examples:

For example, to improve the convenience of personal life driven by AI. AI has become the most basic ability of AI to change personal life experience. Through the background AI computing to help users better plan the route to avoid congestion, the use of AI interaction ability to turn the map into an intelligent voice assistant, so that users can meet their needs with a simple conversation. Through the Baidu Map window, users may waste less time and resources on transportation, thus improving the efficiency of their personal life.

A further step is the change in travel made by AI. When the map product is loaded on enough terminals, the map itself becomes a command console for travel requirements. Mining past data through AI to predict congestion to guide users to avoid congested roads, or to guide users to choose public transport through navigation function when predicting a high concentration of travel demand. It can not only make travel more efficient, but also reduce the pollution caused by traffic.

Finally, there is AI's change to the whole scene. Traffic is everywhere, and when we rush from one destination to another, we often bring goals and needs. AI can empower not only "travelers" and "travel routes", but also "destinations". For example, using travel data to help parking lots calculate the flow of people, or through AR walking navigation to help scenic spots establish internal navigation routes. It is because of the ubiquity of traffic that AI is everywhere.

Travelers, travel roads and destinations form a comprehensive cover from point to line, and then to the scene. Let wisdom come to the world, such a huge task, obviously can not be done by Baidu Map alone.

Ecological opening, Traffic Power: activating Industry and Future

If you pay attention to Baidu's actions in recent years, you must know that "ecological openness" is the main theme of Baidu. From the technical API interface to the development platform, and then to the AutoML-style simple development tools. Baidu has accumulated enough experience in technology opening and has established layer-by-layer open logic for different developers. At the 2019 Baidu Map Ecology Conference, Baidu Maps, which has grown into the largest intelligent location service platform in China, also announced its own open ecological strategy.

The map product itself has a natural openness. The massive travel data mentioned above was jointly created by the developers of Baidu Maps and Baidu Maps API. But now Baidu Maps has chosen to further open up the underlying technical architecture, in addition to providing location information and navigation for developers, it has opened up eight types of application capabilities: intelligent positioning, route planning, navigation, road conditions, map and image services, trajectory services, location search services, and intelligent Mini Program. And based on these capabilities, we launch solutions for many industries, such as intelligent transportation, shared travel, express logistics and so on.

Baidu Map's move has obviously changed the status quo of many industries that rely on travel demand. In particular, logistics, shared travel and other industries, they no longer need to accumulate their own data research and development technology, just directly through Baidu Maps to take advantage of the technology dividend.

Take the new energy charging pile as an example. Baidu Maps integrates about 95% of the national charging pile data, and the intelligent cloud computing capability behind it can calculate the frequency of the site through traffic flow, helping new energy sites improve operational energy efficiency and further improve the closed loop of charging services, which is of great benefit to the new energy industry.

In addition, the ecological opening of Baidu Map also accelerates the integration of transportation and a variety of industrial ecology. With the intelligent Mini Program as the connection point, the intelligent Mini Program has the functions of payment, tools, content and so on, which can be seamlessly connected with the travel scene. For example, after planning the itinerary on Baidu map, ticketing and hotel Mini Program can directly connect users to purchase tickets and make hotel reservations. For example, when you travel across cities, you can automatically access Weather Intelligent Mini Program to remind users of climate change. This integration mode not only facilitates users, but also accelerates traffic input and activates various industries.

The huge amount of data accumulated by Baidu map, the AI ability of Baidu brain, the storage and computing power of Baidu smart cloud, the rich ecology and efficient deployment of intelligent Mini Program. In an open ecology, all of this can reach the real world more efficiently.

In addition to the direct improvement of industrial energy efficiency, Baidu Maps also made another far-reaching move at the ecological conference.

At the ecological conference, Baidu Map launched for the transportation industry and set up the "Intelligent Transportation Joint Laboratory" as an innovation platform to promote joint innovation in the form of data opening and cooperation to help build a transportation power. In the list of laboratory partners, we can see the names of the top research institutions of the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Construction and other departments, as well as a series of universities such as Tsinghua University, Peking University and so on. The first batch of partners are so authoritative, which shows that the industry attaches great importance to the intelligent transportation joint laboratory.

It turns out that the ecological opening of Baidu Map should not only change the present, but also support the integration of industry, university, research and application through its own data and technology output, and better explore self-driving, high-precision map applications and other issues closely related to future economic development. It can be seen that the ecological opening of Baidu Map has not only activated the industry, but also activated the future.

Traffic has never stopped changing the pace of life, and has stepped up its pace today.

Concluding remarks

In fact, there is an interesting way to recall why Sumerian wheels were handed down in the world. Because the principle of the wheel is simple, the Sumerians at the beginning of chaos have no sense of copyright. This standard I can use, you can also use, but let countless people create and process the wheel, so that it gives play to unlimited value.

Today's Baidu map is actually the same as the Sumerians who built the wheels. Integrate technology into the simplest form and open it to the whole world, and the world will maximize the vitality of technology.

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