Japan's traffic law revised to add rules for next-gen vehicles

The Japanese government passed a bill Tuesday to introduce new rules for next-generation mobility, such as unmanned self-driving vehicles, automated delivery robots and electric kick scooters. The bill to revise the current road traffic law was approved at a plenary meeting of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, following its passage at the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, last week. Under the revised law, a license system will be introduced for operators of transport services using unmanned vehicles with Level 4 autonomy, which requires no driver in the remotely monitored vehicle within a limited area. Such vehicles are expected to be used for residents in depopulated areas. The new rules obligate the operators of unmanned vehicles to prepare a system to ensure that staff would be sent out to the site of any accidents.