The railway major announced it will initially aim to intiiate driverless operations for the Joetsu Shinkansen line between Niigata and Tokyo stations.

The company will take incremental steps to automate the bullet trains, reported The Japan Times.

There are different degrees of automation. As a start, JR East plans to run bullet trains with the second grade of automation between Nagaoka Station and the Niigata shinkansen station centre by fiscal 2028, which ends in March 2029, the newspaper reported.

The railway company plans to introduce railways on the  Joetsu Shinkansen line with the third grade of automation mid- 2030.

In the third stage, the train crew will remain on board but the cockpit will reportedly remain empty.

The initiative is reportedly a part of the  Transformation 2027 vision.

It was presented in 2018.