Domo arigato, Mr Roboto: Japan's bullet trains to ditch drivers

One of Japan's major passenger railway operators announced plans on Tuesday to bring fully automated bullet trains into service by the mid-2030s.

The decision was attributed to population decline and work style reforms.

JR East highlighted [PDF] several benefits of autonomous operation - including enhanced safety and transport stability, energy savings from efficient operations, increased flexibility to meet demand, and the ability to reallocate employees to other tasks.

The Shinkansen, Japan's high-speed rail vehicles often described as "bullet trains," connect Japan's major cities at speeds of up to 320km/h (199 mph).

The sleek trains and the 2,700km of tracks that carry them are symbolic of Japan's technological and engineering prowess, including earthquake detection and advanced braking systems. They have a 60-year record of fatality-free operations to show for it.

Commuters will have to wait a decade or so for fully driverless travel, with crew still on board on the first targeted line - the Joetsu line. However, they'll be able to experience elements of automated bullet trains earlier as JR East will proceed with the upgrade in incremental steps.

By March 2029, travel between Nagaoka and Niigata stations will operate autonomously, but with a driver supervising. The next year, out of service trains on certain segments will no longer be crewed.

Other lines will be upgraded later. The main efforts underway include developing systems that automate crew responsibilities by delegating train scheduling and anomaly detection to devices.

JR East has been developing equipment since 2019 to enable autonomous driving patterns including energy-optimized acceleration, deceleration, stopping, and schedule adherence. It hopes to have it implemented by FY 2028.

Among other tasks, JR East is working on tech - using existing monitoring devices that identify issues in the undercarriage of the train - to detect anomalous vibrations and subsequently stop the train without crew intervention. That feature is slated for implementation in FY 2029.

Fully automated bullet trains are just one of the many ways Japan is turning to tech to alleviate the effects of its declining population. Other measures include AI bear monitoring systems and aerial telecommunication base stations for teleservices and Earth observation of remote areas in case of natural disaster.

In June, Tokyo launched its own dating app in the hope it will lead to more marriages and slow the rate of population decline. ®