Driving assistance apparatus and driving assistance method

A driving assistance apparatus that controls a lighting apparatus to illuminate a road from a vehicle, the driving assistance apparatus comprising:

• acquisition circuitry that acquires position information of the vehicle, travel lane information indicating a travel lane in which the vehicle is traveling, and road information;
• a controller that performs control to cause the lighting apparatus to illuminate a branching road in a first illumination manner when it is determined, based on the position information, the travel lane information, and the road information, that the travel lane in which the vehicle is traveling is a lane of a road with a plurality of lanes per direction and is directly connected to the branching road and the vehicle is traveling a first illumination section satisfying a predetermined positional relationship with a branching point of the branching road from the travel lane;
• and
• the controller causes the lighting apparatus to illuminate the branching road in the first illumination manner when the travel lane is the lane directly connected to the branching road and does not cause the lighting apparatus to illuminate the branching road in the first illumination manner when the travel lane is not the lane directly connected to the branching road.