TRANSPORTATION AND SAFETY IN JAPANThe Current State of Drive Video Recorders in Japan and the Outlook
for the Future
Toshihiro ARAI

Safety Research Division, Japan Automobile Research Institute (JARI)

1.	Introduction
On-board flight recorders
have been in airplanes for sometime, and have made a significant
contribution to our understandingof the causes of accidents and how
to prevent them. Drive video recorders, which act like flight recorders
for automobiles, have recently beenbrought to market in Japan and are
rapidly gaining popularity in commercial vehicles, particularly taxis.
These drive video recorders arecapable of recording not only driving data but also video images forthe period immediately before andafter an accident. In a situation
where both parties to an accident
assert that the light in front of themwas green, for example, the issue
could quickly be resolved by replaying the video. Drive video recorders
have also begun to be applied not
only to the disposition of accidents

but also to driver education, where
they are proving effective in deterring accidents. This paper describes
the development, diffusion andcurrent use of drive video recorders
in Japan as well as next steps andthe outlook for the future.

2. State of Diffusion
The first drive video recorders
capable of recording video were developed for tests conducted by what
was then the Ministry of Transport
as part of research conducted between 1998 and 2000 to establish
the technical requirements for drive
video recorders. However, in part
because memory cards were still
very expensive, the product was notbrought to market at that time. Later,in 2003, the product was commercialized, adopted by some taxi companies, and recognized as having a
dramatic impact in deterring acci-(Source: company web sites)

Fig. 1 Drive video recorders sold in Japan by various companies

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dents. This sparked the rapid diffusion of the devices among taxi
companies; today an estimated 20%of taxis in Japan are equipped with
on-board drive video recorders.
Meanwhile, there has also been
sharp growth in the number of manufacturers entering the drive video
recorder market. Today, as shownin Figure 1, more than fifteen manufacturers offer a variety of drive
video recorders for sale. In most,the detection of an accident by acceleration sensor triggers the logging of anywhere from a few to a
few tens of seconds of video andother data from before and after theaccident. Some machines, however,are capable of storing a few days ofcontinuous video and data on aninternal hard disk drive. Recently,
low-cost drive video recorders targeting the general public have also
been developed and are available forpurchase at auto parts stores.

3.	Data Use and its
EffectivenessAs mentioned above, the diffusion of drive video recorders in thetaxi companies have occurred in thecontext of their effectiveness in deterring accidents. Figure 2 presents
the results of a 2005 survey of taxi
companies conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure andTransport, and shows accident reduction to be the most common
reason for adopting drive video
recorders. In fact, there are numerous examples where installation ofdrive video recorders alone resulted
in fewer accidents. This is believed
to be because drivers are extra careful to drive safely when they know
their driving is being monitored,
but we cannot expect such an effectto be sustained without driver education. Indeed, the survey results
show driver education to be thesecond most common reason foradoption. Certainly, images of anaccident captured by a drive video
recorder have a huge impact not
only on the driver involved in theaccident but also on co-worker
drivers. The survey also researched
the drop in accident rates following
the adoption of on-board drive video
recorders. The results showed a
23% reduction in personal injury
accidents in which the driver wasprimarily responsible, 39% in personal injury accidents in which thedriver was secondarily responsible,
13% in accidents involving only
property damage and 26% in accident disposition costs.
Using the video images andother data recorded on drive video
recorders requires recovery of thememory cards followed by computer processing. For taxi companies with large fleets, this work can
be a significant burden. For thisreason, many companies recover
the memory cards only after an accident has occurred. At Japan Automobile Research Institute (JARI),

however, we have been working incooperation with two taxi companies in Tokyo to collect both accident and near-accident data froma total of 200 vehicles at three business locations in order to test the useof such data in driver education.
Figure 3 describes the system usedin the experiment. All vehicle datais transferred automatically by
wireless LAN to servers at eachbusiness location as the taxis returnto their lots. This data is collected
and forwarded to a JARI server overthe Internet. At JARI, data for accidents and near-accidents are extracted from the forwarded datausing automatic detection software.
Video images for such incidents arethen reviewed and entered into a
database by category (rear-end collision, frontal offset collision, struck
pedestrian, struck bicyclist, etc.).
The accumulated data is then used
to calculate accidents and near-accidents by vehicle type and time period, to analyze the causes of typical

Reasons for Adoption (N = 56)
89.5%

Accident Reduction (51)80.7%

Driver Education (46)68.4%

Speeding up Accident Disposition (39)
Improving Fleet Management (6)10.7%

Improving Company Image/Social Responsibility (2)3.6%Preventing Trouble When Accidents Occur (1)1.8%

Build Trust Between Management and Drivers (1)

1.8%

0%

20%

40%60%80%100%(Source: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport web site)

Fig. 2 Reasons for adopting drive video recorders

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141

Rear-End
CollisionAccident
Visual Review
Automatic Sort

Frontal Offset
Collision

Near-Accident

Collection and Analysis

BicycleOther
Pedestrian
Etc.

JARIInternet

Taxi Business Location A

Taxi Business Location B

Taxi Business Location CFig. 3 Collection and application of drive video recorder data at JARI

accidents and near-accidents, and toidentify avoidance measures. Thesefindings form the basis of a monthly
briefing with operational and administrative managers from the taxicompany.

4. Next Steps(1) Improved Reliability
The taxi company has complainedthat the drive video recorders havesometimes failed to record accidents either because the drive video
recorders were broken or because

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the accidents were minor, low-impact collisions. At the very least, wemust ensure that the devices arereliable enough to faithfully record
all accidents.
(2) Integration with Other OnBoard Devices
Commercial vehicles are alreadyequipped with so many on-board
devices (digital tachographs, carnavigation systems, taxi meters,
wireless radios, etc.) that there ishardly any room left to add drive
video recorders. Drive video re-corders, digital tachographs and car
navigation systems share many
structural similarities and there is astrong possibility that such devices
could be technologically integrated.
There may be legal constraints orchallenges in maintaining reliability, but integration is certainly desirable.
(3) Additional Functionality
Video taken by drive video recorders could be used to facilitate realtime warnings of lane departure or
insufficient following distance.

Other additional functionality might
include the application of driving
data to a diagnosis of driving skill.
Some drive video recorders alreadyincorporate simple examples of such
additional functionality. It will be
important to develop such additional functionality in order to promote diffusion among trucks andbuses, where accident rates are lower than for taxis.
(4) More Sophisticated Data
Anal­ysis Software
Drive video recorders include software for viewing and analysis but
there are problems with poor usability and an inability to work wellwith the software that businesses
already use to manage their fleets.
Furthermore, each drive video recorder manufacturer uses dedicatedsoftware that is incompatible withthat of other manufacturers. Software improvement and standardization would be desirable in terms ofdiffusion going forward.

5. Outlook for theFuture(1) Diffusion Among Commercial
VehiclesGiven that diffusion among taxis in
major metropolitan areas has had areal effect, diffusion is expected tocontinue steadily, including in cities
located in outlying areas. In addition, the obligation of business administrators to ensure safety wasclarified in the Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport's motor
carrier transportation safety management guidelines, which went
into effect last October. Because

these guidelines mention the use ofdrive video recorders, diffusion is
expected to continue also amongtrucks and buses.
(2) Distribution Among Private
VehiclesWe can expect an educational effectfor commercial vehicles because of
the employment relationship between company and driver, but it
seems unlikely that drivers of private vehicles will purchase drive
video recorders in the hope of educating themselves. There must be
some more effective incentive before drive video recorders will become popular among private vehicles. One first thinks of ways toreduce barriers to purchase such as
lowering the price of drive video
recorders or an insurance discountfor users. Drive video recorders
marketed to the general public are
currently priced in the range of about
40,000 yen; such devices mightwell spread rapidly were the priceto fall below 10,000 yen. Furthermore, integration with car navigation systems as mentioned in section
4 (2) and the addition of warning ordiagnostic functionality as mentioned in section 4 (3) would offer
real benefits to drivers of private
vehicles.

Because drive video recorders enable objective scientific investigation of accidents and near-accidents
that, until now, were matters only of
speculation, their range of application and effect is immeasurable. At
the same time, the fact that drive
video recorders record video images
may create a need to discuss how
to address the potential danger ofprivacy concerns. Drive video recorders are expected to make a great
contribution to prevention safetymeasures in the future; one can only
look forward to their healthy development.

REFERENCE
Fiscal 2005 Research Report on the Effi­
cacy of On-Board Drive Video Recorders(In Japanese: http://www.mlit.go.jp/jidosha/anzen/dorareko/dora-houkoku17.pdf)

6.	In Conclusion
In the last few years, drive
video recorders have spread remarkably in Japan and steadily produced
positive results. Going forward,
there is a strong possibility that suchdevices will become more common
in trucks, buses and private vehicles.

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