Automated driving has caught the attention of Congress. The House of Representatives passed the “SELF DRIVE Act” in September 2017, and the Senate Commerce Committee advanced the “AV START Act” in October. Both of these would significantly increase the number of vehicles that can be exempted from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and encourage developers of highly automated vehicles to provide specific information on the safety of their vehicles. These bills are early steps to calibrate regulation of automated vehicles. The bills have received broad bipartisan support—but also important criticism.

Anticipation for highly automated vehicles has also been high in Japan. In view of the expected arrival of the automated & connected driving society in 2025, the Japanese government set a goal to commercialize highly automated and connected vehicles (Level 3 and above) and include them in the services market by 2020. Public-Private ITS Initiative/Roadmaps 2017 was released last year, laying out scenarios up to the year 2025 for realizing highly automated and connected driving and focusing on preparing the regulatory system with a view to strengthening and commercializing the technologies. Based on the Initiative/Roadmaps 2017, the Japanese government is going to develop a fundamental policy for reviewing related laws by the spring of 2018. Moreover, various verification experiments and pilot projects are being conducted with a view toward societal implementation, and international cooperation and coordination have led to an effort to establish international technical standards at UN WP.29. 

With this rapidly changing and highly focused legal and regulatory background in relation to automated vehicles, JITI USA ivinted experts on the subject, from both Japan and the U.S., to discuss the progress so far (especially milestones accomplished), as well as the future path toward automated vehicles.