Tokyo police to set up section for autonomous driving accidents

Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department plans to set up next spring a section dedicated to the investigation and prevention of accidents involving autonomous driving, the force has said.

High-level knowledge and skills are necessary to investigate the causes of such accidents and the Tokyo police hope to accumulate expertise and share it with police departments in other prefectures amid the spread of autonomous driving trials held across the country.

The new section, to be created within the police department’s traffic bureau, will be in charge of handling applications for Level 4 services — under which a system handles all driving operations under specified conditions — as well as investigating accidents and advocating accident prevention.

Taxi-hailing app operator Go, U.S. self-driving technology firm Waymo and taxi operator Nihon Kotsu announced in September that they will jointly launch driverless taxi services in Tokyo in 2027, marking Japan’s first such commercial service.

The service would use Level 4 autonomous driving and the companies plan to expand the fleet to about 100 vehicles gradually.

The government aims to increase the number of buses, taxis and trucks operating with autonomous driving services to 10,000 vehicles in fiscal 2030.