Nihon Kotsu as the "Prince of Taxis." The company was founded as a sole proprietorship in 1928 and reorganized as a stock company in December 1945. It began as a limousine operator and expanded to taxi service in 1940. NK operates the most popular taxi hailing mobile application in Japan, Japan Taxi. Toyota invested 500 million yen in the app in 2017, followed by a second 7.5 billion investment in 2018. Tokyo Musen, a major rival of Nihon Kotsu in the Tokyo area, joined the app later that year in an effort to counterbalance foreign rivals such as Uber and Didi Chuxing.
Robo-Taxi Robo-Taxi A Robo-Taxi, also known as a Robo-Cab, a self-driving taxi or a driverless taxi is an autonomous car (SAE Level 4 or 5) operated for an e-hailing (on-demand mobility) service. The fact of eliminating the need for a human chauffeur, which represents a significant part of the operating costs of that type of services, could make it a very affordable solution for the customers and accelerate the spreading of Transportation-as-a-Service (TaaS) solutions as opposed to individual car ownership. However, it raises the issue of job destruction. Several studies highlighted that robo-taxis operated in an AMoD service could be one