# Nationwide deployment of ITS Spot services

Beginning with the start of ITS Spot service on all lines of the Bayshore Route on January 31, 2011, from January throughout March of the same year, it became possible for the services to be received at approximately 1,600 locations, primarily on national highways. (It should be noted that the start of service has been postponed in Tohoku, Kanto (the area covered by the East Nippon Expressway Company Limited) and Niigata due to the Great East Japan Earthquake.) For inter-city expressways, ITS spots are generally placed every 10 ~ 15km, including about 90 locations in front of junctions, for inner-city expressways they are located approximately every 4km.

In addition, since the compatible car navigation systems have been available from private companies since fall of 2009, it is now possible to receive a variety of services across the country.

The following three basic services are implemented at ITS spots:

(1) Dynamic route guidance (2) Safe driving support (3) Electronic Toll Collection (ETC)

(1) Dynamic route guidance is a service that enables drivers to select the fastest route according to the latest information at the time, by providing real-time road traffic information on national highways covering a wide area and various possible inter-city expressway routes, and finding the fastest route using the navigation system.

ITS spots provide the car navigation system with data on travel times for each road sector, for roads with a total length of up to 1,000 km. Through the use of this data, it is now possible for the car navigation to calculate the quickest route at any time and provide this information to the driver.

(2) The ITS Spots also provide safe driving support information in accordance with the traffic safety challenges of each road. For example, about 50,000 falling objects accidents occur on the Metropolitan Expressway each year (about 1 case every 10 minutes). Using ITS Spots to broadcast the information collected in the traffic control center to provide an appropriate amount of time in advance before the obstacle, reduction in the number of close calls while driving is expected.

In addition, warning drivers about traffic jams, etc., that cannot be seen around curves at high-accident locations, reduction in the number of rear-end collisions is expected. Further, at the Sangubashi curve, where accidents occur most frequently on the Metropolitan Expressway, accidents have been reduced by about 60% due to measures such as providing information through road information boards in addition to car navigation systems. Furthermore it is now possible to use images to inform drivers about the traffic conditions in tunnels, as well as about weather conditions such as snow or fog.

(3) ITS Spot services use the same communication technologies as ETC, making it also possible to receive conventional ETC services by using compatible car navigation systems.

In addition, since the ITS Spot communication-compatible car navigation systems are manufactured in accordance with international standards, international expansion into Asia and other regions is also possible, and this is expected to contribute to industrial growth in Japan.

Overview of ITS Spots and ITS Spot compatible car navigation systems