been establishing and improving safety management systems internally on a company-wide basis. In 2015, 146 operators were subject to evaluations of transportation safety management whereby the state verifies the status of the implementation of these systems.

## (ii) Ensuring Compliance on the Part of Motor Carrier Businesses

In order to enforce the Labor Standards Act and other relevant laws and ordinances and thoroughly manage operations, business operators who have willfully driven while under the influence of alcohol, business operators who have caused a major accident, and business operators who have recently entered into a new market shall be subject to thorough audits as well as to audits and oversight carried out jointly by relevant organizations. Unsuitable business operators will be strictly punished according to tightened standards.

Willful business operators who contravene laws and ordinances shall be subject to efficient and effective audits, including audits on a selective, priority basis. In response to a ski bus accident that occurred in Karuizawa in January 2016, chartered bus business operators nationwide were subject to curbside audits and focused audits on an emergency basis.

In order to reinforce audit functions for the prevention of accidents through efforts to merge audit information with accident information, reinforce analytical functions, and identify business operators deemed to be at high risk of causing an accident, a comprehensive safety information system for commercial vehicles is being developed.

## (iii) Eliminating Drunk Driving

With respect to the thorough use of breathalyzer tests with alcohol detection devices during roll calls and to proper knowledge of and usage bans on dangerous drugs in the context of efforts to eliminate driving while under the influence of dangerous drugs, guidance is being provided to business operators and operating managers whenever the opportunity arises through the use of workshops, nationwide transportation safety campaigns, general transportation safety checks conducted during the year-end, New Year’s period, and other such initiatives in order to thoroughly ensure that drivers are guided and supervised on a daily basis.

## (iv) Promoting Safety Measures Based on the Use of IT and New Technologies

We are providing support for the deployment of equipment that will contribute to the advancement of operation management such as digital operation recorder and for advanced initiatives such as preventing overwork driving, from the point of view to support the efforts made to prevent the traffic accidents caused by the automotive transportation operators. Next-generation operating management and support systems linking vehicles with onboard devices and health-care instruments are being studied.

## (v) Accident-Prevention Measures Based on Accident Patterns by Industrial Sector and Key Factors

In order to promote transportation safety, we are implementing accident-prevention initiatives based on characteristic accident patterns for each industrial sector—trucks, buses, and taxis—in concert with on-site concerned persons and are endeavoring to improve the provision of guidance to and the supervision of entry-level drivers through the establishment of a quasi-medium-size license as a new licensing category for the drivers of trucks.

## (vi) Measures Based on the Recommendations of the Committee Investigating Accidents Involving Commercial Vehicles

Established in collaboration with the National Police Agency in 2014, the Committee Investigating Accidents Involving Commercial Vehicles has conducted more advanced, complex investigative analyses of accident factors, such as by endeavoring to further clarify the organizational and systemic issues behind major accidents involving commercial vehicles that have a large impact on society, in order to receive objective, higher-quality recommendations on recurrence-prevention measures. Reports for eight cases concerning incidents subject to special important investigations were then publicly issued.

(vii) Promoting Measures to Prevent Accidents Caused by Rapid Physical Changes Affecting Drivers

In addition to endeavoring to thoroughly disseminate the Manual on Health Management for Drivers of Commercial