On August 20, 2026, the Ministry of Transport held a special press conference to officially release the first batch of 41 guidelines for the construction of key typical scenarios of artificial intelligence and transportation, and launched the creation of typical application scenario projects. Previously, in June of this year, the Ministry of Transport, together with the State Railway Administration, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the State Post Administration, and China National Railway Group Co., Ltd., jointly issued the "Action Plan for Innovative Typical Application Scenarios of Artificial Intelligence and Transportation", fully launching the innovation action for typical application scenarios.

Ten Major Direction Scenarios Released

The plan proposes ten directions including intelligent driving, intelligent highways, intelligent railways, intelligent civil aviation, intelligent postal services, and intelligent multimodal transportation, and releases the first batch of 41 typical scenarios. Around the four major directions of infrastructure, transportation vehicles and equipment, transportation services, and industry governance, 860 breakthrough scenarios covering the entire fields of railway, public transportation, water transportation, aviation, and postal services have been sorted out and formed. In terms of smart civil aviation, we encourage the development of large-scale models for civil aviation, and carry out key technology applications such as operation prediction, scheduling optimization, and risk prevention. We also explore the application of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft and drones in short distance transportation, air travel, and other scenarios.

Three types of scenarios and two leading modes

Innovation action is set up in three scenarios: application promotion, innovation demonstration, and breakthrough research, with two leading models supporting them. Application promotion focuses on mature technologies such as high-speed intelligent monitoring and station intelligent security checks, and is led by scene owners to promote large-scale implementation; Innovation demonstration focuses on cross domain integration such as multimodal intelligent scheduling and comprehensive hub intelligent services, jointly promoted by scenario owners and artificial intelligence enterprises; Breakthrough research focuses on bottleneck areas such as specialized vertical models for transportation and autonomous decision-making algorithms for complex scenarios, led by artificial intelligence technology companies. The three types of scenarios correspond to different stages of technology implementation, forming a complete innovation loop from single point demonstration to global coverage. Keywords: high-tech news and information, low altitude economy, unmanned systems

Unmanned systems accelerate large-scale applications

At present, the postal and express delivery industry has deployed over 16000 unmanned express delivery vehicles and deployed more than 400 drones in various parts of the country to provide end of pipe delivery services in areas with inconvenient transportation such as mountainous areas and islands. The Deputy Director of the Policy and Regulation Department of the State Post Bureau stated that the postal industry has widely applied artificial intelligence technology in multiple fields, and unmanned aerial vehicle end delivery has entered the substantive operation stage, effectively improving the quality and efficiency of postal services. The Ministry of Transport will synchronously implement the "Top 100 Innovative Actions" for the construction of high-quality datasets in the transportation industry, striving to build a strong supply, efficient circulation, safe and reliable industry data resource system within 3 to 5 years. By 2030, a batch of high-value application scenarios will be opened up, a batch of high-level algorithm models will be formed, and a batch of artificial intelligence and transportation new infrastructure, new technological equipment, new service models, and new industrial forms will emerge.Editor/Gao Xue