Japan Road Traffic Law Revised to Add Rules for New Mobility

From Jiji

April 19 2022

TOKYO – The Diet, Japan’s parliament, enacted a bill Tuesday to introduce new rules for next-generation mobility, such as unmanned self-driving vehicles, automated delivery robots and electric kick scooters. 

The bill to revise the road traffic law was approved at a plenary meeting of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, following its passage at the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, last week.

Under the revised law, a license system will be introduced for operators of transport services using unmanned vehicles with Level 4 autonomy, which requires no driver in the remotely monitored vehicle in an limited area. Such vehicles are expected to be used for residents in depopulated areas.

The law obliges the operators to prepare a system to ensure that staff would be sent in the event of an accident.

A registration system will be set up for providers of delivery services using automated robots.