# Chapter 2 Overview of Current Road Traffic Safety Measures

## 1 Improvement of Road Traffic Environment

## ○ Improvement of People-First Walking Spaces Offering Safety and Security

While gaining the cooperation of the local communities, traffic safety measures such as actively improving sidewalks in school routes, residential roads, and main roads in town areas were promoted from the standpoint of "people".

(1) In order to ensure the safety of passage for children and infants attending elementary schools, kindergarten, nurseries, and children's houses, the improvement of sidewalks along school routes were actively promoted.

In addition, improvement was devised for school and kindergarten routes through push-button traffic lights, improving pedestrian lighting and pedestrian overpass, and expanding and augmenting pedestrian crossing.

(2) In March 2009, Prefectural Public Safety Commissions and road administrations cooperated to implement comprehensive accident prevention measures such as pedestrian improvement in 582 residential and industrial areas with high rates of fatal and injury accidents of pedestrians and bicycles that were assigned as ‘Safe Walking Areas’.

Additionally, on residential roads outside of such areas, Prefectural Public Safety Commissions and road administrators worked together to prevent speeding vehicles, to define the shape of roads, and to make clear the existence of intersections to drivers and traffic sections for pedestrians and drivers referring to the “Residential Road Accident Prevention Measure Manual”. Policies for preventing traffic accidents were implemented to promote the initiative for creating secure road spaces that could be safely shared by both pedestrians and drivers.

(3) The improvement of sidewalks along school routes, in order to ensure the safety of pedestrians and bicycles, were promoted.

Furthermore, in order to ensure that elderly and disabled people can get around on their own, the roads connecting stations, government facilities, hospitals, etc. were improved by installing wide, flat sidewalks. These improvements are based on the new barrier-free laws.

In addition, electric pole clearance and reconstruction projects were also promoted along with the improvement of barrier-free traffic signals, pedestrian overpass with lifting and lowering devices, car parking lots, and car parking lots with parking grids for disabled persons. At the same time, LED lighting and higher brightness for road signs were promoted in order to devise the safety and smoothness of passage for elderly and disabled persons along with adapting to the increase of elderly drivers.

## o Application of the Intelligent Transport System

An intelligent transport system (ITS), which attempt to unify people, roads and cars systematically, to improve safety, transport efficiency and comfort, and to contribute greatly to environment conservation through smoothing traffic such as reducing traffic jams using cutting edge information technology, is promoted. For this reason, based on the entire ITS concept formulated in 1996, research and development, field tests, and the development of social infrastructure are to be promoted and improved with the cooperation of industry, government, and academia.

(1) The improvement of systems and the implementation of optical beacons which is key infrastructure of Universal Transport Management Systems (UTMS) were promoted on the basis of the conception of UTMS, that the advanced traffic control center, which plays the leading role, and other equipments attempt to secure the safety and to comfort of traffic, to provide drivers with the advanced traffic information, to control car traffic, to attach priority to public vehicles, to reduce traffic pollution, to support the safety of driving, and to ensure the safety of pedestrians through the use of optical beacons capable of two-way communication with cars and the active and comprehensive management of the flow and stream of traffic.

(2) ITS Spot service is being deployed to create a Smart Way that uses ITS technologies to connect people, cars, and roads by means of information, in order to achieve traffic safety, congestion measures and environmental measures. ITS Spot devices installed primarily on expressways from January through March 2011 are now being used to provide a diverse array of services nationwide. (Due to the Great East