In the field trials, major bus company "Keihan Bus" in Kansai which operates bus routes in 2 prefectures such as Osaka Prefecture will do with Otsu City cooperation.

next year to prospect, such as approximately 1 km main street from JR Otsu Station to Lake Biwa, plans to service the bus of the automatic operation in the central city of Otsu City, the commercial operation of the driver and passenger, carrying a customer I will verify whether I can do it.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, it is unusual for private bus companies to conduct automatic driving experiments in the city on the premise of commercialization.

if there is no problem with such safety and profitability in the experiment in the company, in the driver to prospect the year after next is have decided to start operating in automatic operation that passenger, proceeds lack of driver, In the future we aim for automatic unmanned operation.

Okubo Naoaki of Keihan Bus ICT Promotion Division says, "I'd like to build a model that raises revenue and makes the project sustainable by using the tool called automatic driving."