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U.S. driverless taxi operator begins collecting data in Tokyo
by KENTA NAKAMURA
May 6, 2025
A vehicle of Waymo LLC is operated by a Nihon Kotsu Co. taxi driver, who is aboard it, in Tokyo’s Minato Ward on April 10. (Kenta Nakamura photos
Waymo LLC, which operates fully autonomous, driverless taxis in the United States, has announced that it would start collecting road data in Tokyo to explore the possibilities of offering commercial services in Japan.
Human drivers were to operate a fleet of Waymo’s test vehicles manually for collecting the driving data.
Cameras and sensors aboard the vehicles were to be used to collect 360-degree imagery of the surroundings and other data in the form of 3-D information.
Jaguar SUVs of Britain’s Jaguar Land Rover Ltd. were to be used in the task.
Each Jaguar was to be fitted, among other things, with 29 cameras, five radar devices, and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) units, which use laser light to detect obstacles.
An artificial intelligence system will learn about Japan’s traffic signs and traffic rules and design a self-driving system that will be optimized for use in the country.
Media representatives were given a sneak peek of a test vehicle on April 10.
Waymo’s vehicles were to start running along streets in seven wards of Tokyo, including Shinjuku and Shinagawa, successively as early as the middle of April to accumulate data. The fleet will eventually grow to comprise 25 vehicles.
They were to be operated by drivers working for Nihon Kotsu Co., a major Japanese taxi firm.
Waymo is offering more than 200,000 taxi rides per week in California and elsewhere in the United States.
The company, at the moment, has no prospect of providing commercial services in Japan, but Nicole Gavel, head of business development with Waymo, said that she believes the next step would start with a driver behind the wheel.
There are concerns that a spread of driverless taxis could affect the employment of taxi drivers.
“It could indeed take jobs of the future,” said Ichiro Kawanabe, a Nihon Kotsu director who is also head of the Japan Federation of Hire-Taxi Associations. “But I don’t believe the spread will be fast enough to threaten the jobs of existing drivers.”
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