The Vehicle Information & Communication System (VICS) Center began real-time road traffic information providing service in April 1996, as the forerunner of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) services in Japan. Service area covers more than 60% of all prefectures, exceeding 77% of possession of cars at the end of June 2001, and the cumulative number of VICS terminals boarded on car navigation systems exceeded 2.8 million units (car navigation units > 7.1 million) at the end of March 2001. The conventional road traffic information services provided by radio and on TV generally update information at intervals of about 30 minutes. On the other hand, the VICS displays information on car navigation terminal in real time. Because of the extra convenience, the VICS service users have been increasing rapidly in Japan. As a result of the widespread use of VICS service, shortcomings of the present VICS surfaced and requests for improvement of VICS service have been expressed by users. In order to resolve these shortcomings and improve the VICS service, the authors have examined methods to advance the VICS service, and they assume utilizing the digital broadcasting as a means to advance the system and service. To apply the VICS information into digital broadcasting system, the authors first examined a coding system by XML, which is the base of coding system for multi-media service on digital broadcasting. They plan to conduct indoor/on-air experiments and test broadcasting to verify the effectiveness of XML coding system and to simulate future services that can be made possible by this coding system.
Abstract