ITS Japan's Chairman Hiroyuki Watanabe talks to ITS International about his country's progress with cooperative infrastructures and how the experience gained to date can benefit similar initiatives elsewhere
Japan gave the rest of the world a taste of the cooperative infrastructure future when, in 1996, it went live with the Vehicle Information and Communication System (VICS). Designed to provide real-time traffic information and alerts to in-vehicle navigation systems with the dual aims of increasing safety and reducing congestion, VICS is broadly analogous with Europe's Traffic Message Channel (TMC) system. It is essentially a Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) system delivering information via a variety of media and Japan has since moved to build on its VICS experience with a 5.8GHz Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC)-only system, SmartWay. (See 'First to market', ITS International July-August 2008, pp.48-49 for an overview of VICS/SmartWay evolution.)Government economic intervention in response to the recent global downturn has stimulated deployment such that tested functions (information on obstacles/traffic conditions ahead, merging assistance, and the provision of traffic information with clear voice) are now in daily operation and their coverage is being extended to all 47 prefectures nationwide. This will include installation of roadside infrastructure at 1,000 locations in FY2010.
SmartWay, which is deployed on expressways, is but a part of a much wider intelligent transport system landscape. The infrared beacon-based Driver Safety Support System (DSSS) is deployed on other roads and there are various very active undertakings in the vehicle autonomous safety field. Electronic Toll Collection has operated at a national standard (also 5.8GHz DSRC) since 2001.
Public-private undertakings
Underpinning this all, says"Pre-SmartWay, VICS and the national ETC system helped the public to realise the benefits of cooperative systems and the importance of system deployment. SmartWay can be regarded as the extension of these two systems with some newly added features.
"Japanese ITS has been developed and deployed since the 1990s as a direct result of cooperation between the public and private sectors. SmartWay also involved both sectors working together on R&D, establishing the specification, and conducting the pilot programmes as well as step-by-step on-road testing. It entered practical service just this last year."
Watanabe does not regard Japan's model of implementation as being the only way of doing things, recognising that local and national conditions can dictate other ways of working. But, he says, Japan's experiences, extending from R&D through to the practical phases of ITS, provide a solid reference for other countries.
"One of the benefits of VICS is the reduction of traffic congestion by the dispersion of traffic flow through the provision of traffic information to drivers," he continues. "The economic effect through the reduction of time loss due to congestion is about 750 billion yen a year; the first 10 years of VICS operation had a positive effect on the national economy amounting to 3.71 trillion yen.
"At the individual level, VICS users appreciate the reductions in mental stress, and by extension the increases in safety, they experience as a result of being able to monitor the real-time traffic situation on in-vehicle displays. That has been another contributor to the rapid market penetration of the system. SmartWay will build on that; field operational testing has shown that the system can reduce the number of accidents on blind corners by 70 per cent."
SmartWay provides more than just congestion or parking information. Information on obstacles and traffic conditions ahead are provided using both voice and images. Moreover, the growth of communication data capacity has helped to bring about a dramatic increase both of the geographic area served and data accuracy.
"In the near future, further new services will be brought to market and users will be able to connect to the Internet whilst at expressway rest areas, pay for parking services, and receive more advanced traffic information," Watanabe continues. "SmartWay opens the roadside infrastructures to the private sector.
Companies are already planning the operational management of commercial vehicles using probe information, the provision of tourist or regional information in the rest areas on expressways, and advertisement services for outlet malls."
There is a precedent for this. Since VICS information became available to the private sector in 2002,
"Honda and Nissan provide the users with the most 'ecological' routing using the probe information," says Watanabe. "Honda also shares any available routings with the public in the form of mobility support information at times of disaster, such as earthquakes. Private sector organisations are also working with the public sector to support transport policy development to mitigate traffic congestion and accidents."
Consumer attitudes
Japan is advantaged in having a population which is very susceptible to technological change. Unsurprisingly domestic consumer electronics manufacturers embrace this fully, with the result that the time to market of new products is often very short by comparison with other parts of the world."It's fair to say that Japanese people are very accepting of new technologies and services," Watanabe says. "There are also many influential electronic manufacturers competing to develop products with new features. "If we look at digitisation of television broadcasting, both the broadcasting operators and electronics manufacturers were involved from the initial stages of policy-making discussions and promoted the market penetration of the new system from each standpoint. It's my aim to see something similar happen with ITS.
"Market penetration of onboard units and deployment of roadside infrastructures are often seen as a 'chicken-and-egg' issue. In the case of ETC and VICS in Japan, the use of onboard units only really became widespread upon completion of infrastructure deployment. Without a realistic or usable number of infrastructure systems in place, drivers would not have become interested in purchasing the relevant products, and manufacturers would not have been so easily encouraged to develop those products at an attractive price. When it came to SmartWay development Japan went about the process in a well-coordinated manner: the public and private sectors worked collaboratively from the earliest stage and several manufacturers released onboard products at the point when the national government gave the go-ahead to infrastructure deployment. ITS Japan acted as the coordinator for the ITS-related organisations and other industries and, again, I think that there's a lot that other countries can learn from how we went about that."
International cooperation
Watanabe describes as 'tiny' the differences between Japan's cooperative and ETC infrastructures and those elsewhere in the world operating at 5.9GHz. He sees little which stands in the way of international cooperation on global systems development."I don't think it's important to focus on the tiny difference of frequency between 5.8GHz and 5.9GHz because there is little difference technically," he says. "But the differences within the communication systems themselves will give a big impact on their compatibility. In being mindful of that, the wireless system adopted for SmartWay is in accordance with standards laid down by the ITU and ISO. Japan also joins in work towards standardisation which is going on in Europe and the United States. Engineers around the world are concentrating on building a communications network that is independent of particular communications media at present so I'm quite content that our decision here in Japan to go with 5.8GHz will not affect the future progress of ITS."
The economy and the global imperative
The other side of the cooperative infrastructure equation is the vehicle. The automotive sector has taken something of a battering over the course of the recent economic downturn and Japanese car companies are no exception.
Watanabe is only too aware of the challenges they face: "Although Japanese automotive companies have maintained a strong presence in the global market over the last several decades, that won't continue unless they continue to address issues such as changes in the market, increased safety requirements, global warming and so on. It's necessary not only to improve vehicle technologies and performances but also to take an active part in the integration of traffic infrastructure and renovation of social systems. From that point of view, I regard the ITS World Congresses as among the most important opportunities that many experts of various fields have to gather to discuss problems and solutions.
"In Busan at this year's
"The recent world economic crisis has shown clearly how deeply we are interdependent on each other on a global scale. Mobility and logistics are the basis of any economy and ITS is one of the most important tools with which to bring all the necessary elements together. We need to further improve R&D and activities to put the results to practical use but this needs to be done under the auspices of global cooperation, not in isolation. Beyond the strong cooperation between three ITS organisations of
