Wuhan Taxi ‘Sky Eye’ Goes Live, 16,000 Vehicles Can Be Dispatched in Real-Time to Evacuate Passengers

At 0:12 on February 4th, the first smart dispatch instruction for taxis was issued. “Friendly reminder: Currently, there are many passengers waiting for taxis in the Hankou Railway Station area, please proceed to assist.” The backend showed that nearby taxis quickly responded to the information and rushed to join the supply support. At 0:30 and 0:45, as night trains arrived in succession, supply support instructions were issued frequently, and more and more taxis responded to the call and rushed to the scene.

Photo provided by Zheng Longfei, Correspondent

It is understood that this year’s Spring Festival travel season is the first practical test for the 16,000 taxis in Wuhan that have been integrated into the vehicle-mounted intelligent terminal system. Behind this, Zheng Longfei, head of the Strategic Development Department of the Intelligent Transportation Center of the Municipal Transportation Bureau, and his team have become an indispensable key force in this Spring Festival “big test”.

“Currently, there are more than 17,000 taxis in Wuhan’s central urban area. As an important part of urban transportation, they often take on the heavy responsibility of ensuring smooth transportation during peak holidays and adverse weather conditions when there is a large flow of people in the city,” Zheng Longfei introduced. However, the vehicle-mounted terminals used in the past can no longer meet the needs of modern urban traffic management. To change this situation, the Municipal Transportation Bureau actively promotes technological updates, revising technical standards starting in the second half of 2023, with formal implementation in 2024. New vehicles will integrate audio, video, and other data, while old vehicles will be encouraged to update their terminals early through incentive policies.

As of January 2025, 16,000 taxis have completed the update of their vehicle-mounted terminals. The new system not only improves the authenticity and accuracy of data, providing taxi drivers with more convenient services, but more importantly, it installs a pair of “sky eyes” on all taxis in the city. When the city urgently needs to ensure smooth transportation, it can clearly see the passenger and empty vehicle status around the supply locations and can remotely command and dispatch vehicles in real-time.

Zheng Longfei explained that the installation and debugging of the new system were not smooth, especially when updating old vehicles and systems, various issues could arise, such as data not being uploaded in real-time and video interruptions. “To avoid affecting the normal operations of taxi drivers, the technical update work is usually scheduled during off-peak hours. As long as the driver makes a call, we immediately go online to start work,” Zheng Longfei said. In a month and a half, the technical team worked overtime, averaging over 200 vehicles per day to integrate and debug the vehicle-mounted intelligent terminal system, successfully updating 10,000 vehicles.

Zheng Longfei mentioned that the integration of the intelligent terminal system for supply support taxis is still ongoing, and by the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, it has reached 16,000 vehicles. Through technological empowerment during the Spring Festival travel season, the Wuhan transportation department can make emergency capacity assessment and dispatching of large passenger flows more intelligent and efficient. Additionally, due to the convenience brought by technology, passengers’ travel experience during the Spring Festival is safer, more convenient, and warmer.

A relevant person in charge of the Municipal Transportation Bureau stated that on February 3rd and 4th, as the return passenger flow increased, the vehicle-mounted intelligent terminal system for taxis issued a total of 17 supply support dispatch messages, mainly concentrated on the evening of the 3rd and the early morning of the 4th, issuing dispatch instructions to over 400 taxis, playing a positive role in the evacuation of large passenger flows during the Spring Festival travel season.