Cold Regions ITS
For Better Mobility in the North of Tomorrow
Civil Engineering Research Institute of Hokkaido

Disaster Prevention & Snow Engineering Division(in charge of ITS), Road Department
In order to achieve safe and comfortable winter road driving in Hokkaido, the Disaster
Prevention & Snow Engineering Division of the Civil Engineering Research Institute ofHokkaido has been conducting research on ITS in cold, snowy regions by utilizing
advanced information communication technology, as well as conducting research onsnowstorm or avalanche countermeasures.

Research on Wide-area Information Provision Service
Weather conditions are prone to sudden change on winter roads in Hokkaido. If weather conditions are accurately known andforecast, and drivers are provided with information on those conditions, then the sence of security on drivers can be increased
and the drivers can change their transportation behavior (e.g., departure time and transportation mode). The Disaster
Prevention & Snow Engineering Division of CERI is conducting research and development of a service to provide drivers withinformation on roads and weather conditions in a wide area before they travel.

Snowstorm ahead

Detour to avoidsnowstorm
Car Navigation SystemprInformation
ormation provision
through various
arious media
Web siteSnowfall and visibility conditions(Current conditions and forecast)Wide-area Information Provision Service"Did receiving the information prompt you to change your transportation behavior?" (N=157)"No, I did not change
my transportation behavior""Yes, I changed
my transportation behavior"

No answer 1%36%63%"What kind of behavior did receiving the snowstorm information prompt you to take?" (N=157)

I changed my planned route.
I changed my planned departure time.
I changed from vehicle to public transportation.
I cancelled my travel plans.
It didn t , although the information was still helpful.
It didn t , because the information was unhelpful.
Other.
No answer.

24%
43%
11%
15%

札幌 - 当別
12/24 17:00現在

8%

・角山経由
降雪状況
角山付近で弱い雪
弱●- - - - 強1%
10Mobile phone

札幌圏の吹雪の広域情報提供

34%
5%0Web page used for setting e-mailoptions, and an example of a sent
message20

30% of respondents

Change of transportation behavior prompted by information provision

4050

RESEARCH ON A SAFE-DRIVING SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR WINTER ROADS

Information terminal at Michi-no-eki(roadside rest area)

Mobile phone

Research on Roadside Information Provision Service
In winter during blowing snow, drivers tend to follow the preceding vehicle by watching its tail lamps, resulting in following distances
becoming shorter. In addition, because the road surface is icy, even a small driver error can lead to a multi-vehicular collision.
The Disaster Prevention & Snow Engineering Division of CERI is conducting research and development on a roadside information
provision service that uses road sensor and light-emitting delineators. The road sensor defects stopped or slowed vehicles, then thedelineators warn drivers of danger by flashing, and roadside message boards. The objective of this service is to assure safe driving inpoor visibility caused by snowstorms, to prevent rear-end collisions with tailing vehicles and to keep any accident from escalating.
Warning by light-emitting delineators

Sensor detects accident

Danger warning light (flashing)(Stopped vehicles)
Delineating light
Warning by roadside message board

Accident ahead

Field experiment on National Highway 337(Tobetsu)

WarningRESEARCH ON A SAFE-DRIVING SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR WINTER ROADS

Roadside Information Provision ServiceDelineation and warning by light-emitting delineators
Delineation

Road alignment isindicated by thedelineation part.
The delineation part(orange) lits during
blowing snow or at night,
so that drivers can see theroad alignment.

Light-emitting delineator(the lower part is the delineator)

Danger-warning
Danger warning light(flashing)
Danger warning light(yellow) flashes whensensor detects slow orstopped car ahead duringsnowstorm.

Light-emitting delineator
Roadside message board(the upper part is the danger-warning part) (vertical type)

Ishikari Blowing-Snow Test Field
The Ishikari Blowing-Snow Test Field is on a dry riverbed at the lower reaches of the Ishikari
River north of Sapporo. This area frequently experiences strong northwesterly winds inwinter. The frequency of snowstorm occurrence here isMerging and diverging
among the highest in Hokkaido. The natural conditions of the test section
test field enable tests, including driving tests in snowstorms orpoor visibility, that are difficult on roads in service.

Roadside message board(horizontal type)

Curved test section (R=50m)

Straight test section(L=300m)
Ishikari Blowing-Snow Test FieldIshikariSapporo

The Northern Road Navi Web Site
The "Northern Road Navi" portal Web site provides road information from various road administrators in Hokkaido.
Information is provided in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean.

URL

Distance and time search pageEnglishKo r e a n
Simplified Chinese
Tra d i t i o n a C h i n e s eMobile phoneh t t p : / / w w w. n o r t h e r n - r o a d . j p / n av i / e n g /h t t p : / / w w w. n o r t h e r n - r o a d . j p / n av i / ko r /h t t p : / / w w w. n o r t h e r n - r o a d . j p / n av i / c h s /h t t p : / / w w w. n o r t h e r n - r o a d . j p / n av i / c h t /h t t p : / / n - r d . j p / （ Japanese only）

Mountain pass information pageThe Shiribeshi e-Route
The Shiribeshi e-Route is an experimental web site used for gathering and providing road information, based on a governmentresident partnership. The site provides road closure information and road weather telemetry data from the Hokkaido Regional
Development Bureau, weather and road surface information, road images and comments on road conditions provided by theShiribeshi Tourist Association and volunteers, and weather advisories and warnings together with forecasts for the 20 individualmunicipalities in Shiribeshi Subprefecture provided by the Hokkaido Branch of the Japan Weather Association. Information
gathering and provision was performed using Road Web Markup Language (RWML) in this experiment.
h t t p : / / w w w. e - k a i d o. j p / ? s h i r i b e s h i / (in Japanese)Top page

Route information page

Web page on which volunteers can input information

Road Web Markup Language
Road Web Markup Language (RWML) applies Extensible
Markup Language (XML) to road information. Data in
RWML is easy to gather and to process, and can be used instructuring a system to provide useful information for users by
combining it with other information such as weather andregional information. The specification of RWML version 1.0
has been published on the CERI Road Department web page.
URLh t t p : / / w w w 2 . c e r i . g o. j p / e n g /What is XML?

URL

h t t p : / / r w m l . i t s - w i n . g r. j p / e n g /Whereas HTML supports only the representation and layout of documents and defines how documents will be
displayed on a PC screen, XML can support a logical structure, permitting computers to directly handle informationon the Internet as identifiable data.

<RWML>
Road information <road-info>
Road weather <road-weather>
Road surface <road-surface>
Live images <camera-image>
Traffic congestion <congestion>
Traffic control <regulation>
Traffic flow <traffic-flow>
Travel time <travel-time>
Location-specific <specific-place>
Weather information <weather-info>
Current weather <actual>
Weather forecast <forecast>Warning <warnings>
Disaster information <disaster-info>
Earthquake <earthquake>
Basic information <basic-info>
Volcano <volcano>
Flood <flood>
Regional information <regional-info>
Messages from municipalities<country-message>
Local event <event-info>
Tourist information <tourist-info>
Scenic area information <scenic>

RESEARCH ON A ROAD INFORMATION SYSTEM WHICH UTILIZES INTERNET TECHNOLOGY

Top page

Research on Driving Behavior and Effective Delineating Facilities on Winter Roads
In Hokkaido, light-emitting delineators, snow poles and delineating trees are installed for delineation during snowstorms. Also,
fixed poles with arrow-shaped pointers, which originally were installed to indicate the edge of the roadway for snow removal,
are used as general-purpose delineators. Delineators vary in shape and in light emission. Therefore, it is necessary to examine
their visibility and delineation performance. At the same time, it is important to improve safety and increase the sense ofsecurity on winter roads in light of rapid demographic aging. To achieve this, it is necessary to examine driving behavior anddelineator recognition under such winter conditions as slippery, snowy or icy road surfaces, and snowstorm-induced poor
visibility. The Disaster Prevention & Snow Engineering Division of CERI has been conducting research into human factors on
winter roads by surveys utilizing a visibility-observation vehicle and eye-mark camera, and has been researching anddeveloping the effective installation of delineators.

2〔deg〕
2〔deg〕

Eye-mark camera
Arrow-shaped pointerEye movement converted
to arrow-shaped pointerRESEARCH ON WINTER ROADS AND HUMAN FACTORS

Delineator visibility test (Ishikari Blowing-Snow Test Field)

Optokinetic survey with an eye-mark camera on National Highway 276 (Kimobetsu)

Visibility-observation vehicle

Classification

The visibility-observation vehicle is loaded with various
meteorological instruments such as a visibility meter andwind gauge, and enables detailed snowstorm measurements
to be made while driving.

Measurement item

Weather condition

Visibility, Wind direction and velocity, Temperature,
Photographic image from inside the car

Driving condition

GPS location, Speed, Acceleration

Driver behavior

Steering angle, Acceleration pedalstroke rate , Brake pedal pressure

Eyemovement behavior

Eye-mark camera

Vehicle loaded visibility meter(side scattering type)
Wind direction & velocity meter
GPS antenna
Thermometer
Magnetic direction sensors

Observation while driving

Video camera image
Wind direction & velocity meter

CCD video cameras

GPS antenna

Steering angle meter

Thermometer

Visibility meter
Magnetic direction sensors

CCD video cameras
Eye-mark camera

Data transmitterVideo recorder

GPS gyroscope

Visibility meter

Acceleration meter
Acceleration pedal stroke rate gauge

Steering angle meter
Acceleration pedal stroke rate gauge
Braking pressure meter

GPS Processor
PCVideo recorder

Monitor

Vehicle speed detector

Acceleration meter
Braking pressure meter
Vehicle speed detector

Disaster Prevention & Snow Engineering Division(in charge of ITS),Road Department, Civil Engineering Research Institute of Hokkaido
Hiragishi 1- 3 -1- 34, Toyohira-ku, Sapporo 062 - 8602, JAPANTEL : +81-11- 841-1746, FAX: +81- 11- 841- 9747
E-mail : its_win@ceri.go.jp Web Site http : //www2.ceri.go.jp/eng/
2005.10