Expressway closures due to bad weather reaches more than 30,000 hours annually in Japan because of its geographic and meteorological peculiarity, and approximately 65% of them are caused by poor visibility due to dense fog and snowfall. Japan Highway Public Corporation (JH) has conducted several hardware-based measures and system-based measures to alleviate especially fog effects. At present, an intelligent transportation systems- (ITS)-based traffic operation strategy named "Vehicle Guiding Operation" is under the development, and one region with terrible fog problem, called Beppu region, southeast Japan, is selected as a pilot program field of the operation. With the operation, approximately 50-70 % of road closure due to dense fog is expected to be reduced. After some experiments and field tests, ITS technologies for the operation such as millimeter radio wave sensor, and magnetic lane marker have been developed. Eventually, JH has established a pilot model of guiding operational vehicle equipped with obstacle detection sensor. The pilot model is introduced in Beppu region this September, and the project will move to the next stage.
Abstract