Tokyo police to set up section for autonomous driving accidents
The Tokyo force hopes to accumulate expertise and share it with police departments in other prefectures.
Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department intends to establish a specialized unit in the coming spring, aimed at investigating and preventing accidents involving autonomous vehicles, the police have announced. The task force will require high-level knowledge and skills to analyze the causes of such incidents and intends to share this expertise with police departments throughout Japan as autonomous driving trials proliferate across the country.
The new division, to be housed within the police department’s traffic bureau, will oversee applications for Level 4 services – a classification where the system manages all driving tasks under particular circumstances – as well as conducting accident investigations and promoting accident prevention measures. In September, taxi-hailing app provider Go, U.S. autonomous technology company Waymo, and taxi company Nihon Kotsu revealed plans to jointly launch driverless taxi services in Tokyo in 2027, marking Japan’s inaugural commercial autonomous vehicle service.
The service will utilize Level 4 autonomous driving, and the companies aim to gradually expand the fleet to approximately 100 vehicles. The Japanese government aims to increase the number of autonomous buses, taxis, and trucks to 10,000 vehicles by fiscal year 2030.
Written by urgent.news from Japan Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
