Kikuo Hayakawa, NOST Tokyo
Originally published on the site of NL Agency
Summery
The 11th Intelligent Transport System Symposium (ITS Symposium) was held on December 12-13, 2013 in Aichi, Japan. The annual symposium, organized by the industry association ITS Japan, put the theme ‘ITS for making a flexible universal society’. Over 400 oral and poster presentations were reported at the symposium, joined by companies, universities, research institutes and governments. The panel discussion topics were energy ITS, data centric ITS, smart community ITS and mobility divide/ITS for elderly people. It was discussed how ITS can flexibly contribute to the new life styles based on ICT, smart community and the aged society. At the symposium the 20th ITS World Congress was announced which will be held on October 14-15, 2013 in Tokyo. The theme of this congress is ‘Open ITS to the Next’. The Dutch ITS leaders are welcome to the ITS World Congress.
Details
The development of ITS aims to reduce traffic congestion and traffic accidents, and improve the efficiency of energy consumption of vehicles by means of car navigation systems and vehicle automation technologies. The ITS Symposium in Japan aims to stimulate the development of ITS by exchanging information between researchers and policy makers etc. One of the highlights reported was the progress of the Japanese government’s project, ‘Development of Energy-saving ITS Technologies’. It includes the new truck platoon technologies which will allow for a controlled distance between trucks of only four meters. This technology will be commercialized in 2015. The transport sector accounts for twenty percent of all the energy consumption in Japan. The development of truck platooning is expected to contribute to energy-efficiency in the transport sector in the near future. The project leader is Mr Kenji Aoki of the Japan Automobile Research Institute in Tsukuba. The open demonstration will be organized between February 25 and March 1, 2013 in Tsukuba, Japan (Demo.2013 in Tsukuba). The other highly relevant topic was data centric ITS, which is about how to use the knowledge from the Big Data which is collected with probes, car navigation, vehicle information and terminal sensors etc. about a discussion developed on how to put a balance between the driver’s privacy and public benefits. One of the views was that a new model will deliver not only will use the driver’s personal probe data, but also will deliver benefits by providing data to the driver. The other view was that is necessary to go forward with this system even if not everyone agrees. At the symposium the 20th ITS World Congress was announced which will be held in Tokyo in 2013, organized by 20th ITS World Congress Committees and ITS Japan. The theme of the Tokyo’s ITS Congress is ‘Open ITS to the NEXT’. Topics for discussion will probably include the perspective that in the next generation of ITS, cars and other means of mobility will be embedded as components of the social network. The Japanese organizers will welcome world leaders in policy making, technology development and institutional issues to share the challenges and opportunities together in Tokyo. Particularly, the Dutch ITS leaders are welcome to this ITS World Congress.
Fig.1. the 20th ITS World Congress Tokyo 2013
Sources
1) ITS Japan
