## ② Technological Development and Realization of New ITS Services

## (a) Nationwide Deployment of Smartways

Industry, academia and government have been working together to further the Smartway project as the next generation of roads that connect people, vehicles, and roads with ITS technology for the purpose of traffic safety, traffic congestion measures, and environmental measures. As part of this effort, beginning in 2011 a variety of services are being offered nationwide through ITS Spots mainly installed on expressways.

Through ITS Spots and compatible car navigation systems, services such as car navigation, VICS, and ETC which used to be provided with separate onboard devices can now be provided as an all-in-one service, thus realizing the three basic services of dynamic route guidance, safe driving support, and ETC. Also, some device models are able to connect to the Internet to provide regional tourism information and in the future, digital cash payments for parking lots and other facilities, logistics support, and a variety of other services are expected to be offered. In addition, investigations are under way regarding route confirmations that contribute to the support of vehicle operations.

## (b) Explorations for the Realization of Next Generation ITS

For the future, in addition to promoting the spread of ITS Spot services, efforts will focus on realizing safe, comfortable, and smooth road traffic by “connecting” roads and automobiles such as roads providing information regarding road traffic conditions to support and control appropriate automobile driving thus relieving traffic congestion as well as gathering information from automobiles on the travel route and utilizing it for road management. Also, for systems to realize automated driving on expressways, issues to realize this will be identified and studied; as part of this, technical and safety aspects are being studied with operation tests using Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) through public-private partnerships.

## (c) Promotion of the Advanced Safety Vehicle (ASV) Project

Regarding the ASV promotion plan, efforts are under way for the development, commercialization, and widespread adoption of Advanced Safety Vehicles (ASV) that enable drivers to drive safety by using advanced technology such as ICT technology. Currently investigations are under way to promote the development of communication type safe driving support systems and in March 2012 a guideline was drafted for vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems that use communication. Also, investigations were initiated for the commercialization of pedestrian-vehicle communication systems.

Illustration of Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication Systems (Advanced Safety Vehicle - ASV)

Source) MLIT

## 2 Realizing a Society that Utilizes Geospatial Information Sophisticatedly

In order to utilize position and location information or “geospatial information” $ ^{Note 1} $ in a more sophisticated through ICT, following the “Basic Plan for the Advancement of Utilizing Geospatial Information” enacted by Cabinet Decision on March 27, 2012, initiatives are being promoted to realize a “G-Spatial Society (Society Sophisticated Utilization of Geospatial Information)” where anyone is able to utilize necessary geospatial information anytime and anywhere.

## (1) Maintaining and Updating Geospatial Information as the Foundation of Society

The Digital Japan Basic Map $ ^{Note 2} $ and Fundamental Geospatial Data $ ^{Note 3} $ which can be used as the basis for utilizing