Nissan Motor and DeNA are set to start a field test of the robo-vehicle mobility service ‘Easy Ride’ in the Minatomirai district of Yokohama, Japan, next month.

The solution is jointly being developed by both companies and aims to provide a mobility service to customers who intend to travel freely to their destination in a robo-vehicle.

Easy Ride is also expected to help customers discover new local destinations.

The field test will be conducted on a 4.5km-long route between Nissan’s global headquarters and the Yokohama World Porters shopping centre.

Both companies have also set up a remote monitoring centre to ensure efficient fleet operations.

At the field test, Nissan and DeNA will also assess Easy Ride’s unique service functions.

“The in-car tablet screen offers around 500 recommended places of interest and events in the vicinity, from which passengers can choose their destination.”

Through a dedicated mobile app, passengers can provide inputs through text or voice commands to choose from a list of destinations.

The in-car tablet screen offers around 500 recommended places of interest and events in the vicinity, from which passengers can choose their destination.

Nissan and DeNA can use the test results for further development of Easy Ride, as well as carry out future field tests.

The companies initially aim to introduce Easy Ride in a restricted environment and then launch a full service in the early 2020s.

They also plan to work together to develop service designs for driverless environments, expanded service routes, vehicle distribution logic, design pick-up / drop-off processes and multilingual support.