commercial vehicles accidents by half in the next 10 years," the various initiatives for efforts to reduce accidents of commercial vehicles are being promoted, based on the "Commercial Vehicles General Safety Plan 2009" established in March 2009.

Moreover, in order to reliably achieve the objectives of the Plan, regular and continuous checks along the PDCA cycle will be conducted, and the goal achievement and progress of the measures will be yearly confirmed among the concerned parties, while new measures will also be considered if necessary, based on factor analysis of traffic accidents.

## o Enhancement of Transportation Safety Management System

Based on the “Transport Safety Management System” introduced in October 2006, a safety management system was established by the operators, which was taken action by management executives to on-the-site workers as a whole. The country carried out the evaluation for transport safety management to 578 companies by the end of December 2011 to confirm the status of implementation.

## 4 Ensuring Vehicle Safety Measures

## ☐ Promotion of Vehicle Safety Measures

In order to promote the dissemination and practical application of development of advanced safety vehicles (ASV) that uses progressive technology to support driving safety, the 5th phase of the advanced safety vehicle (ASV) promotion plan was initiated from 2011. With the collaboration of academic, business, and government circles, the initiative for the practical realization of genuine dissemination of ASV technology utilized up to now and communication-based safety driving support systems is being implemented.

In addition, subsidies to fluctuating alarm and collision mitigation brake for heavy-duty vehicles have been implemented.

In order to prevent accidents resulting from incomplete check and maintenance, such as wheel loss of large-sized vehicle and bus catching fire, the government has continued to conduct intensive checks of large-sized vehicles, newly put into operation in 2007, in September, October, and November including "Promotional Campaign for Motor Vehicle Check and Maintenance" month and has informed about the cautionary items in the check and maintenance of large-sized vehicles such as trucks and buses.

In 2004 the government responded to the need to detect cover-ups and other illicit practices being made by automakers through initiating measures to prevent the recurrence of fraudulent recall-related activities by bolstering the various systems in combating unfavorable information gathering, auditing of defective vehicle-related businesses, and technical inspections, and steadily implemented measures in prevent any recurrence in 2011.

Furthermore, in order to assume the perspective of the user even better, the recall system has been carried out to strengthen the organizational structure that aims to strengthen the research and analysis and information gathering system.

## 5 Improvement of Rescue and Emergency Medical Systems

## Promotion of the “Doctor-Helicopter Business”

For the purpose of augmenting medical treatment during ambulance transport and on emergency sites, doctor-helicopters were in the process of being promoted based on "special law relating to ensuring emergency medical treatment using emergency medical helicopters" established and implemented on June 27, 2007. By the end of January 2011, 32 doctor-helicopters had been deployed to 27 prefectural medical emergency centers (including code-share prefectures).

## Augmentation of Fire Departments and Collaborative Systems for Medical Agencies

In recent years the length of time since a call is made to 119 till an injured or ill person is brought to a hospital has been lengthening. Furthermore, these have been cases with the difficulty of selecting a health care facility that will accept the injured or ill person. Given such conditions, the Fire Service Law was amended in 2009, and the criteria (hereinafter referred to as "Performance Standards") related to the implementation of patient transport and acceptance was decided. Such criteria was decided in order for prefectures to swiftly and appropriately facilitate the transportation of sick or injured people and their acceptance into healthcare facilities as emergency operations through the fire department. Also, a committee is to be established to hold conferences regarding performance standards; the members will be the fire department and healthcare facilities. As of now, March 31 $ ^{st} $ , 2012, the performance standards have been developed in all prefectures.