NTT Mobility to test HD-map-free self-driving bus in February 2027

The trial is built around removing a practical bottleneck: HD maps must be surveyed and maintained before an autonomous bus can run a route, which makes each new area costly to enter. NTT Mobility's approach, using Imagry's camera-based system, is meant to allow deployment on new routes without that preparation. The company says this is Japan's first public-road test of an HD-map-free autonomous bus.

The test will start at Level 2, with a driver on board, and will assess fit with Japanese conditions such as left-hand traffic and local traffic signals. Beyond driving quality and safety, it will examine whether the AI's decisions can be explained and checked, how dependent the system is on training data, and how it performs at night and in bad weather. Remote monitoring and operations management, plus operating-cost optimization, are also part of the scope, with an eye toward commercial service in cooperation with transit operators.