SoftBank Corp forged an agreement with US-based May Mobility to accelerate the introduction of autonomous driving services in Japan running on the operator’s 5G network.

In a statement, SoftBank explained the companies aim to combine their strengths in high-capacity, low-latency networks and autonomous vehicle technology to develop a remote monitoring system to collect real-time peripheral images from a vehicle and data from sensors installed on the surrounding roads, and share with a remote monitoring centre.

Junichi Miyakawa, SoftBank president and CEO, said by working with May Mobility it expects to accelerate implementation of autonomous driving in Japan.

May Mobility CEO Edwin Olson stated the partnership is “a golden opportunity” for the company to employ “next-generation mobility infrastructure to increase the adoption of mobility-as-a-service”.

“We look forward to sharing our knowledge and experience in expanding autonomous driving in Japan”.

The company supported trials in nine cities in North America and Japan with its proprietary autonomous driving system in test vehicles.

SoftBank is also conducting research with Honda, with the duo testing the effectiveness of using standalone 5G and a cellular vehicle-to-everything system to reduce collisions between pedestrians and vehicles.