February 7, 2025 Start of Demonstrations for Self-driving Trucks on the New Tomei Expressway

　The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) and the National Police Agency (NPA) jointly established and held the "Study Group on Automated Driving Infrastructure" to promote efforts toward the social implementation of automated driving, including proceeding with the study on infrastructure for automated driving.
　As part of these efforts, we are planning to conduct demonstrations for self-driving trucks on a section of the New Tomei Expressway in collaboration with the MLIT. We are pleased to announce that these experiments will begin on Monday, March 3, 2025.

(1) Experiment start date

　The demonstrations for self-driving trucks will begin on Monday, March 3, 2025.

(2) Experimental section

　New Tomei Expressway (Suruga Bay Numazu SA - Hamamatsu SA)

(3) Details of technical verification

　The following series of demonstrations will be conducted:
　・Priority lane for self-driving vehicles
　　Designating the first traffic zone as a priority lane for self-driving trucks during nighttime hours (22:00-5:00) on weekdays to verify their abilities to travel safely and smoothly.
　・Automatic arrival/departure
　　Verifying whether self-driving trucks can park and start automatically.
　・Predictive information provision system
　　Conducting on-site verification of the ability of self-driving trucks to successfully receive predictive information, such as road restrictions due to construction work, from roadside equipment. This information includes road conditions further ahead that the trucks cannot detect on their own.
　・Merging support information providing system
　　Conducting on-site verification of the self-driving trucks' ability to successfully receive merging support information from roadside equipment.

(4) Public disclosure of the experiment site

　The MLIT will play a central role in publicly disclosing the experiment site for self-driving trucks to the press on Monday, March 3, 2025.
　If you wish to participate, please send an email to the following address by 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 19, 2025, including your affiliation, name, telephone number, and email address. Details regarding the location, time, and other relevant information will be provided to those wishing to attend the experiment (Your personal information will be managed appropriately and will not be used for any purpose other than what is necessary).
　[Point of contact] hqt-its2020-dk@gxb.mlit.go.jp
　*The public disclosure may be canceled, depending on weather conditions or other factors on the day of the event.