Japan’s main truck manufacturers, including Isuzu Motors, Hino Motors, Mitsubishi Fuso, and UD Trucks, announced that they have commenced road tests of Level-4 autonomous driving heavy-duty trucks on the Shin-Tomei Expressway in Japan.
The project is sponsored by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Tourism (MLIT), which originally contracted the truck manufacturers and other companies in 2021 to develop and carry out a “demonstration experiment” of advanced Level-4 autonomous driving technologies using high-performance, heavy-duty trucks on public highways.
Other companies involved in the project include Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Advanced Smart Mobility Company Ltd, Nippon Koei Company Ltd, and Mizuho Research & Technologies Ltd.
The ultimate purpose of the project is to help address the growing shortage of truck drivers in Japan, with participants “aiming for the social (public) implementation of autonomous driving trucks on expressways from fiscal 2026 onward through a joint public-private initiative”. A previous project sponsored by METI and MLIT conducted demonstrations of autonomous truck platooning on public highways.
The current project, which runs from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2025, aims to achieve fully autonomous, driverless trucking between relay areas such as logistics facilities, service areas and parking areas along expressways. It will also assess what additional support is needed in terms of external infrastructure, monitoring and management and vehicle functions.
Based on the results of these demonstrations, in fiscal 2025—the final year of the project—the participants plan to verify the entire autonomous driving process, from vehicle departure at a service area, merging and changing lanes on the main highways, to parking at the destination, under conditions that closely resemble actual driving. As part of the project, trials will be conducted using priority lanes for autonomous vehicles, with the aim of establishing Connected Autonomous Vehicle corridors on Japan’s highways.
