MAEBASHI, GUNMA PREF. ¨C One day in December, a self-driving bus in Gunma completed an 18-km run from Maebashi to Shibukawa and back, dropping fare-paying passengers off at designated stops and navigating public roads.

The driver, who got the bus humming with the push of a button, stayed behind the wheel but was hands-off most of the time, keeping intervention to a minimum. The bus, sporting an array of sensors and cameras, was limited to a maximum speed of around 30 kph.

The bus completed the circuit from Gunma University to Shibukawa Station in about an hour, twice a day for nine days, as part of a pilot program set up by the school, a local bus line, the Gunma Prefectural Government and NEC.

The aim: to achieve the government¡¯s goal of getting driverless vehicles up and running on Japan¡¯s roads by the end of the year.

The move underlines the fact that self-driving vehicles are no longer a vision for the distant future, but just around the corner. This year, in fact, will see dozens of demonstrations held as the nation¡¯s top carmakers use Tokyo to showcase their grand plans to as many people as possible.

2020 is set to be a milestone for the new market, with about 80 self-driving vehicles to be shown off ahead of the Olympics.

¡°With the Tokyo Olympics showcasing automated vehicles, 2020 will unmistakably be the year that shines a spotlight on autonomous driving,¡± said Yoshitaka Tanaka, a partner and leader of the automotive sector at Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting LLC in Tokyo. ¡°Over the long run, it will also be the first year for the practical application phase of autonomous driving.¡±

The pilot program is being spearheaded by Gunma University¡¯s Center for Research on Adoption of NextGen Transportation Systems (CRANTS), which is focusing more on rural, depopulated areas where a lack of public transportation is causing problems for the elderly.

¡°In depopulated areas inhabited mostly by the elderly, I often hear them complain about a lack of transportation. My dream is to solve that problem,¡± said Gunma University associate professor Takeki Ogitsu, the deputy director at CRANTS.

The industry divides automated driving into six levels. From levels zero to 2, people are doing the driving. From level 3 and up, drivers basically have no responsibility even if they are sitting in the driver¡¯s seat.

CRANTS plans to skip level 3 and go directly to level 4 by putting a few unmanned vehicles on public roads this year. It is already in talks with multiple municipal governments and if it succeeds, it will become the first commercial operation in Japan to run an unmanned vehicle network on a public road, Ogitsu said.

It has already...