500 Scenarios: How TIER IV's Robotaxis Handled Tokyo's Edge Cases
Intersection turns, obstacle avoidance, mixed traffic — inside the scenario catalog from TIER IV's Tokyo pilot.
TIER IV's Tokyo pilot logged roughly 500 unique scenarios — intersection turns, obstacle avoidance, unpredictable urban behavior — across Odaiba and Nishi-Shinjuku. In autonomy, the scenario catalog is the real product: every validated edge case is a brick in the safety case.
Tokyo generates edge cases few cities can match: delivery scooters filtering through traffic, umbrellas in rain season, festival road closures, hyper-polite but unpredictable pedestrians.
Why scenario breadth beats mileage
A million highway miles teach a stack almost nothing about Shinjuku at 6pm. Scenario diversity — especially rare, high-severity events — is what regulators and insurers actually price. TIER IV's choice to run in two contrasting districts maximized scenario yield per kilometer.
This is also where open-source Autoware helps: scenarios validated by one participant strengthen the shared stack for all.
Where robotaxi.tokyo fits
As the safety case matures, public trust becomes the bottleneck — and trust is built at the consumer layer: clear booking, transparent service, reliable support. That's the robotaxi.tokyo concept. Early-stage, nothing live; domain open for acquisition or partnership.
Sources & references
Primary material, official filings, and operator publications referenced while researching this article.
- Self Drive News — TIER IV Successfully Completes Robotaxi Pilot Tests in Tokyoselfdrivenews.com/tier-iv-successfully-completes-robotaxi-pilot-tests-in-tokyo/
- TIER IV — official sitetier4.jp/en/
- Autoware — open-source autonomous driving softwareautoware.org/
- Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)www.meti.go.jp/english/
- Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT)www.mlit.go.jp/en/
Strategic Asset
robotaxi.tokyo is open for acquisition or seed partnership.
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