JR West Japan and Softbank Corp. began the empirical experiment of "autopilot team driving BRT" on the autopilot BRT special test route.

　JR West Japan (West Japan passenger Railway) and Softbank Corp. announced on September 27th the opening of a special test route for BRT (Bus Rapid Transit: bus high-speed transport system) using self-driving and team driving technology in Nozhou City, Shiga Prefecture, and the empirical experiment of the "autopilot team driving BRT" development project will begin in October.

　The two companies launched the "self-driving team driving BRT" development project in March 2020, which aims to achieve self-driving and self-driving bus queues for Japan's first joint bus. So far, preparations have been made for empirical experiments such as the setting of special test courses.

　This time, with the completion of the special test route, using three kinds of self-driving vehicles (link bus, large bus, light bus), the convergence of different types of self-driving vehicles, began to carry out empirical experiments such as team driving.

　In the future, through the empirical experiments of the test course, we will take the technical establishment of "self-driving team driving BRT" and the standard packaging of the system as the goal, and take the mid-2020s as the target for the next generation of mobile services.