Merit of self-driving

The operation of automatic driving to public transportation can prevent the reduction of the number of operations due to lack of drivers. In addition, we can improve transportations’ safety.

Possibility of self-driving

In order to put a bus automation system into practical use, it is necessary to improve the environment such as the introduction of new routes for securing safety, establishing new rules for automating or mitigation of regulations. As described above, introduction of automatic driving to public transportation requires enormous cost and time at the present time. And now, assistance function for reducing the burden on the driver, such as the function of keeping the distance between vehicles and runningnly are only implemented.

Automatic operation experiment at Keio University Shonan Fujisawa campus

Currently, automatic operation has not been put into practical use, so it is still in the experimental stage. As part of the experiment, it was demonstrated automatic driving technology using experimental vehicles based on Hino Motors' bus "Poncho" at Keio University Shonan Fujisawa campus. We are studying in this campus and this experiments was done for 10 days from June 1, 2018. In this demonstration experiment, we set 500 meters of traveling route within the campus site and an automatic driving bus was operated on that route. The bus also got on / off at the bus stop.