Hello everyone, and welcome back to another issue of TÉKUNI.
The year started with several tech updates for Japan, with the country vowing to boost nuclear tech development in energy talks with the US as well as to push for green, digital transformation.
The Japanese Government also agreed to boost security cooperation with France, days after Defence Minister Kishi Nobuo warned against North Korea’s missile technology improving substantially.
In other tech news, several companies said they’re developing technologies to keep self-driving cars safe from hackers, and a self-driving car operator was referred to prosecutors for negligent driving that injured an athlete with a visual impairment at the Tokyo Paralympics.
This issue of TÉKUNI is about self-driving applications in Japan.
I have talked to Azarel Chamorro, mobility expert, and Smart Mobility Lead at Mirai Share, about these topics.
👨💻 TÉKUNI Exclusive - Azarel Chamorro
Azarel Chamorro-Obra is a mobility expert originally from Spain and currently based in Japan. Since the first time he played SimCity, he was sure about devoting his career towards sustainable transport. Having worked in Spain, France, the UK, China and Japan he has an international perspective on how different approaches can deal with the same transport and sustainability challenges everywhere.
Azarel not-so-secret passion are trains. “I was once asked in a meeting with the Vicepresident of JR East (the largest railway company in Japan) about what brought me to the country. Most people’s answer is either manga or any other feature of the rich Japanese culture. Mine was very straightforward and simple: - I love trains -. I will never forget his reply: -that’s great, I love them too!-”
In 2013 he fulfilled his dream of riding Japanese trains while studying at the university in Japan. After working at one of the largest transport consultancies in the UK, he came back to the country sponsored by the Government of Japan to research and study at the Tokyo Institute of Technology about smart mobility. Afterwards, he worked at GIZ in China, fostering multilateral collaboration between Germany, the EU and China on sustainable mobility.
Back again in Japan, he is currently working at Mirai Share as a Smart Mobility Lead.
“Working in Mirai Share is a unique opportunity to bring the largest on-demand mobility platform in Japan to those who need it the most. I am also in charge of our growing international activities”.
Mobility in Japan
According to Azarel, transport in Japan is very different from the rest of the world. For instance, in Europe, public transport is ‘public’ and centralised. In Japan, all mass transport is fully private.
“Like in the rest of the developed world, railways were originally built and operated by private companies. Unlike the rest of the world, transport companies diversified their business and make them profitable by building up dense cities that supported the necessary demand.
“For instance, 72% of the revenue of Tokyu Railways, one of the largest transport operators in Tokyo who is rolling out on-demand mobility with Mirai Share, comes from other sources than transport tickets, such as real estate or life services.”
Until now, this fully private model worked well: companies had incentives to attract demand by improving their service offer and the government doesn’t need to provide subsidies except in very specific cases. However, as Japan population ages and ‘degrowth’, the preconditions for providing financially sustainable mass transport no longer hold.
Transport companies all over Japan are looking at new innovative solutions that can support their transition towards the new socioeconomic reality, Azarel says.
Rather than seeing the challenges of an ageing population and the stagnant economy as their end, they look forward to the opportunities that digitalisation can bring to them for staying relevant in business.
“At Mirai Share, we are supporting transport operators and local governments into this transformation. By providing the most advanced platform matching users with shared vehicles we optimise the fleet dispatching system of transport companies, particularly in areas where demand is declining.
“We have worked with a wide range of clients in Japan and abroad: from more traditional taxi dispatching to high-tech autonomous vehicles (AVs)”.
A Growing Industry
Looking towards the future, many transport companies and public administrations in Japan are investing in the implementation of AVs.
Azarel mentions Boldly, a joint venture between French Navya and Japanese Softbank and Macnica that provides self-driving shuttles. Their first “commercial” development of self-driving shuttles in the world was in Sakaimachi, a rural town 50 km north of Tokyo.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) have supported hundreds of AVs tests in controlled areas and public roads since the first inter-ministerial panel was first established in 2015, in line with the government vision towards the realisation of Society 5.0.
A roadmap for AVs was released in 2019 and is being updated on a yearly basis since then. In the same year, the MLIT started to implement the “Smart Mobility Challenge”, a yearly call for funding MaaS initiatives that is doubling in size in every edition.
The results from these pilots provide evidence for the development of further policy advancements, such as the “Guidelines of Data Architecture for MaaS”.
According to Azarel, Japan’s bet on autonomous driving is highly driven by the widespread love of automation and the lack of available drivers. In ageing Japan, AVs may also enhance safety: “the number of accidents involving the elderly represent 56% of total collisions and has grown by 13% in only a decade”.
As in other countries, there are many questions around AVs that policymakers need to be addressed. For instance, an accident involving a “self-driving” shuttle during the Tokyo Paralympic Games in 2021 raised the issue about legal responsibility.
“Drivers are always liable for the control of the vehicle in every legislation in the world. The consequences reach beyond the automotive and insurance interests, and need to be addressed before AVs are broadly implemented”.
Different Challenges
Azarel thinks that “like many Gadgetbahns, the future of AVs is heavily hyped and industry-driven. Japan is not an exception on the many technological challenges that still need to be addressed”.
However, he believes that the main challenge may come from the feasibility of the widely assumed business model of shared robot shuttles roaming in our cities.
“Most of the automotive industry sees AVs as their future and they have solid reasons to believe so: revenue margins of the provision of services are, in principle, much higher than simply selling automobiles.
“A significant part of the urban population in the developed world is also moving towards shared use rather than car ownership (in the last decade the number of registered cars in Japan has dropped by 19% while driver licenses owners continue growing by 1.5 %).”
He argues that even assuming most users will switch to AVs there are still many questions regarding the business and environmental sustainability of swarms of AVs going around in our cities.
“The success of AVs at the necessary scale to be a reliable transport mode depends mainly on their integration with the existing transport network and the cannibalisation of the private car. The first is more possible in Japan than anywhere else since the Japanese business culture foster a great degree of cooperation between multiple shareholders.
“For instance, railway companies investing in AVs want them to be a last-mile solution that can enhance their railway ridership or related services, such as retail and tourism. However, cannibalising private cars is a different story”.
While Japan is experimenting with MaaS subscription services to attract users towards these new digital transport services, the results so far are very limited.
“Back in TokyoTech, I researched about how transport bundles could be used to move people away from their cars. I found that one key reason for most users not to switch towards new services is simply because they are not able to assess the generalised cost of their car trips. Why would they pay every time they ride a potentially slower option than their perceived amortised cars?”
Despite the government efforts, fully autonomous vehicles (Level 5) are still very far from being a reality. According to Azarel, there is little benefit in implementing partially autonomous vehicles in Japan.
“Anything that may require the intervention of a human driver is a business inefficiency. In fully manned systems (Level 0 to Level 2) the driver often represents the highest cost (labour costs represent 73.3% of taxi companies in Japan).
“In partially autonomous systems (Level 3 to 4) to the existing labour cost of a safety driver, the very high technology cost needs to be added. I would not expect significant improvements against currently existing services until the labour costs are fully removed at level 5”.
A local example would be the aforementioned Sakaimachi self-driving shuttles operating on fixed routes. According to the public allocated budget, they cost about two to three times to operate than normal buses. Since they started a year ago, they have carried about 6,200 passengers.
“The Sakaimachi experiment is only a starting point so we need further trials to fully understand the advantages of AVs. But so far, most of the transport issues these new technologies are supposed to address can be dealt with with less sexy and techy solutions.
“Most of the already functional on-demand services I have seen can carry more passengers and enhance convenience. Integrate it with other shared and active mobility options and the result is outstanding”.
Cybersecurity in Self Driving Vehicles
When asked about cybersecurity in self-driving cars, Azarel quoted a basic principle in engineering: “the number of failure points of a system is proportional to the number of parts of that system”.
“Cybersecurity is already an issue. As the technology of AVs gets more sophisticated, new threats arise. Looking at the experience of drones, we have already seen them being hijacked or taken down. This is an actual risk in the era of connected vehicles”.
However, he continues that the more likely issue with cybersecurity will not be related to the actual control of a vehicle, but unauthorised access to the data gathered in it.
“If AVs become real they will become data-harvesting machines on wheels. Trips will be mostly paid through digital or biometric means that could be accessed by cybercriminals.
“Moreover, individual’s trip patterns could (and will) be tracked. This opens new business models for operators but also many issues regarding user rights”.
The future of autonomous vehicles in Japan
In conclusion, Azarel believes it’s still hard to predict when will autonomous vehicles become mainstream in Japan.
“I think Japan has the aforementioned unique elements to see some success on implementing AVs. There is a high degree of collaboration between public authorities and the industry, in addition to a business interest from transport operators, which facilitates investment and market fit.”
However, he thinks that it is essential to look at AVs as part of an integrated transport framework rather than entrust the whole future of mobility to them.
“When I worked in high-tech China I collaborate on disseminating the potential of integrating digital transport solutions within the framework of a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP). I believe that Japan (and the rest of the world) can better realise its vision of a sustainable society by performing a further examination of the current assumptions around the role of AVs.
“A broad perspective that considers AVs with the rest of all road users such as pedestrians, cyclist or not-connected vehicles needs to be further considered. Once that happens Japan has all the elements to success in implementing the future of mobility”.
❓ Want to find out more about the latest tech news in Japan?
🔗 Here is the newsletter’s link section:
The Good 🚗
Record number of Japanese startups at CES 2022 - Business Wire
Robots to probe inside Fukushima reactor - NHK
Amazon now has lockers at Haneda Airport - TimeOut
Huawei bolts into Japan with renewable power storage - Nikkei
More Japanese IT firms encourage telework - NHK
Website owner not guilty over bitcoin mining - Asahi Shimbun
The Bad ☢️
Japan to help build Bill Gates' high-tech nuclear reactor - Reuters
3G flip phones to soon become unusable in Japan - The Japan Times
Japan vows to boost nuclear tech dev in energy talks with U.S. - Kyodo
Self-driving car operator referred to prosecutors - NHK
North Korea fires two ballistic missiles - NHK
Japan F-15 fighter disappears from radar over Sea of Japan - Kyodo
The Quirky ☀️
Giant Pokémon Go video display at Shinjuku Station - Sora News
teamLab has a new interactive art park in Ibaraki - TimeOut
Sony teases details of next-gen VR headset - Reuters
The former Nintendo HQ in Kyoto is now a hotel - TimeOut
Buddhists wear robotic suits - The Asahi Shimbun
Universal Studios Japan gets new rides - TimeOut
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