A Japanese judo athlete has been injured by a self-driving bus operating inside the athletes’ village at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.
As France24 reports, the Toyota e-Palette self-driving vehicle was being used as a shuttle bus for athletes, but failed to stop as 30-year-old visually-impaired athlete Aramitsu Kitazono was using a pedestrian crossing. He fell, suffering bruising to his head and leg, which will apparently require two weeks of recovery time. He was meant to compete in the judo 81-kilogram division tomorrow and it’s currently unclear if he still will.
The autonomous bus did have two human operators on board tasked with supervising its operation. When asked why they hadn’t intervened, the operators stated they thought the athlete would stop walking and therefore took no action. None of the five passengers on board the bus at the time of the incident were injured.
Japanese publication The Mainichi provided further information, stating the bus had stopped automatically just before the incident happened when it detected a security guard close to an intersection. Kitazono was hit as the bus made a right turn on to that intersection because the operators had assumed he would stop walking and pressed the start button to resume operation of the vehicle.
In reaction to the incident, Toyota decided to cease operation of the buses, with a spokesperson for the company stating, “We deeply apologize for those who suffered injuries. We are fully cooperating with the police on the case.”
