Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio has instructed Cabinet ministers to draw up a basic plan for building automated transportation routes along expressways across the nation.

The government has been discussing the creation of what it calls an "autoflow road" system, a new type of infrastructure dedicated to carrying goods automatically on unmanned carts and other transportation.

The measure is to deal with a labor shortage in logistics that is expected to become more serious in Japan.

On Monday, Kishida instructed relevant ministers to prepare a basic framework for the new system, including the selection of routes, by around summer in order to structurally resolve the logistics issue.