Japan put an L2++ certification scheme on its vehicle safety agenda for November 4

Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism announced on October 30 that it would hold the second meeting of its Vehicle Safety Measures Study Group for the 2026 fiscal year on November 4, from 14:00 to 16:30 in Minato-ku, Tokyo. The notice was issued by the Vehicle Standards and International Policy Division of the ministry’s Logistics and Automobile Bureau.

Four substantive agenda items were listed. The first is an interim report on this fiscal year’s evaluation and analysis of vehicle safety measures and the second the status of safety standard development. The third is the direction of measures for spreading safe automated driving vehicles. The fourth is the establishment of a working group to consider an L2++ excellence certification system. The ministry’s index of the study group’s work lists two working groups beneath it, one on new mobility safety measures and one convened to draft guidelines for devices that help prevent children being left behind on shuttle buses, so the agenda item is the creation of an additional one.

The ministry set the meeting against a June 2026 report from the automobile sub-committee of the land transport division of the Transport Policy Council, which named seven pillars for vehicle safety, the first being the development and promotion of automated driving and advanced driver assistance technologies. The stated target is to cut deaths within 30 days of a traffic accident by 1,200 and serious injuries by 11,000 by 2030, measured against 2020, through vehicle safety measures. The meeting is closed to observers apart from filming at the opening, and the ministry said materials would as a rule be published afterwards. The notice does not define L2++.