During the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, the city will be flooded with visitors, especially at Japan’s Haneda airport. To deal with the airport’s visitor surge, the country is testing a fleet of driverless shuttle busses.
In a 10-day trial period, six Japanese firms tested a self-driving prototype minibus. The driver’s hands, donning white gloves, hovered over the wheel in case human-assistance was needed. However, the car drove itself along the route without issue, using both GPS and magnetic road markers.
“Our hope is to be able to offer users autonomous buses by the Tokyo 2020 Olympics,” says Tadakatsu Yamaguchi, project chief of national carrier ANA.
Up to 10 people can tag along for the ride, which drives between two terminals at 19 mph.
Although this could help with a rise in tourists and the country’s clout at the 2020 Olympics, this technology could also assist with labor shortages and the ageing population.
“The decline in the population puts us at risk of no longer being able to carry out operations and that is why we are now pushing to introduce new autonomous mobility technologies so we can guarantee good operations with less staff,” says Yamaguchi.
