A self-driving taxi has successfully taken paying passengers through the busy streets of Tokyo, raising the prospect that the service would be ready in time to ferry athletes and tourists between sports venues and the city center during the 2020 Summer Olympics.
ZMP, a developer of autonomous driving technology, and taxi company Hinomaru Kotsu claim that the road tests, which began this week, are the first in the world to involve driverless taxis and fare-paying passengers.
The trial took place as Toyota and transport giant Uber said they were intensifying efforts to develop a self-driving vehicle, pitting themselves against rival initiatives in Japan, the US and Europe.
Photo: Reuters
Toyota is to invest US$500 million in the venture, which is to develop vehicles based on the automakers’ Sienna minivans, with a view to start testing in 2021, the firms said this week.
Uber and Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, have started testing their vehicles on public roads in the US, but the venture suffered a serious setback in March, when a Waymo self-driving van struck and killed a pedestrian during a trial in Arizona.
Nissan and tech firm DeNa earlier this year tested their Easy Ride robo-vehicle service along a 4.5km set route in Japan.
DeNa and ZMP have also conducted trials of a driverless taxi using Toyota’s Estima minivans, shuttling dozens of residents from their homes to local shops in the town of Fujisawa, near Tokyo, in March 2016.
In the latest trial in Tokyo, a minivan equipped with sensors made four round-trips a day on a busy 5.3km stretch of road between the Otemachi and Roppongi districts, Kyodo News reported.
The experiment, which ends early next month, has captured the imagination of Tokyo residents, with 1,500 people applying to be passengers during 96 planned journeys between the two destinations.
A driver and an assistant are on board to take control of the vehicle in case of any mishaps, but early journeys have concluded without incident.
Passengers unlock the door themselves and pay their one-way fare — about ¥1,500 (US$13.50) — via a smartphone app.
Kyodo quoted one of the first passengers as saying that his Monday morning journey felt “so natural that I almost forgot it was a self-driving car.”
With one eye on the Tokyo Games, the firms are to conduct follow-up tests later this year connecting Tokyo International Airport and the city center’s transport hubs.
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