By NEN SATOMI/ Staff Writer
April 18, 2023 at 08:00 JST
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at a meeting of the Council for the Realization of the Vision for a Digital Garden City Nation in Tokyo on March 31. (Koichi Ueda)
The government has drafted plans to designate specific routes exclusively for autonomous vehicles and delivery drones.
The blueprint, presented during a March 31 meeting of the government’s Council for the Realization of the Vision for a Digital Garden City Nation, is intended to spread the use of such vehicles amid labor shortages in logistics and the declining use of transportation networks in depopulated areas.
According to the plan, a designated lane will run along an approximately 120-kilometer section of the Shin-Tomei Expressway between the Surugawan-Numazu Service Area and the Hamamatsu Service Area, both in Shizuoka Prefecture.
Self-driving trucks will be allowed to use the lane during a late-night time slot, possibly in fiscal 2024.
Sensors and cameras will be installed on the shoulder of the road and elsewhere to check for fallen objects and other obstacles so that the vehicles can avoid them.
The government envisages vehicles potentially self-driving at “Level 4,” which allows them to run without a driver under certain conditions.
A ban on Level 4 autonomous driving was lifted when the revised Road Traffic Law took effect in April.
The government’s plan is to allow vehicles to self-drive along 100 sections of highways in Japan in fiscal 2027.
Routes of delivery drones that fly beyond the line of sight will also be developed.
The government plans to designate an approximately 150-km route in and around Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture, for drones to carry supplies, hopefully in fiscal 2024.
The drone route will run along power transmission lines to allow cargo to be transported in hilly and mountainous areas. The drones could also inspect the electric cables and be recharged.
Japan plans to develop more than 40,000 km of drone flight routes. The government will establish a study council in June to work out plans for these and other forms of digital infrastructure.
It hopes the Cabinet will approve those plans before March next year and promote investment by the public and private sectors.
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