Automatic capture technology that makes recharging faster and easier, automatic-protection battery that can freely switch between different charging modes, fast charging that enables a bus to travel 40 kilometers with a five-minute charge...These are all features of a number of new-type electric buses which are put into use recently on Qingdao Jowin’s Line 774.

The buses are the first batch of Chinese mainland’s electric buses that can search for recharging wires?intelligently and recharge quickly.

On the same day of the buses’ launch, Chinese mainland’s first intelligent transportation research center was inaugurated in Qingdao National High-tech Industrial Development Zone.

Jointly established by Datang Teleom Technology and Industry Group and Jowin Group, the center will?engage in?interdisciplinary cooperation in new energy, smart transportation and smart city and promote the use of the smart recharging management system in buses with a view to making China’s electric buses smarter and scalable.?The operators?hope the center will help make public transportation in cities greener, easier and smoother.

The new buses adopt China’s latest?recharging technology that enables them to recharge their batteries as they travel. The technology saves space compared with conventional recharging stations, is green and consumes less energy, thus significantly increasing the overall operational efficiency of electric buses and reducing the waiting time for passengers. When it is time to recharge, bus drivers will press a recharging button in their cabs. With this, the pantographs will automatically rise and search for the recharging wires through a sensing system. As long as the buses are within 1.5 meters of the overhead recharging wires, the pantographs will precisely locate the wires.

Jowin’s smart cloud platform was also debuted at the same time as the new buses. Jowin installed on 20 of its electric buses?quite a few?cutting-edge smart information technologies related to the Internet of Things, including a hazardous articles detection system, a driving behaviors monitoring platform, a safety alert system, a guidance system for the blind, a facial identification system and a monitor system for passenger flow. Some of the technologies have never been used in Qingdao before and will help provide a green, convenient, safe and comfortable ride experience.

On the handles of the electric buses' two doors?are installed trumpet-shaped devices. The devices are used to detect hazardous articles such as petroleum, ethanol, natural gas?and other flammables and explosives when passengers get on the bus. The detectors will send an alarm when such articles are detected and the drivers will then stop passengers carrying them from boarding to ensure personal and property safety of other passengers.