As a forerunner of the ITS services in Japan, the VICS Center started a real-time road traffic information service from April 1996. The current service area at the end of June 2002 covers about 91% of the prefectures nationwide and more than 92% of the total vehicles. The total number of VICS terminals that are installed in vehicle navigators has reached 4.5 million units or more by the end of April 2002 and currently the number is projected to exceed 5 million units soon. With the rapid spread of the service, user requests for enhancement of the VICS service are increasing. To respond to these requests and to develop the VICS service further, research for enhancement of the VICS system has been carried out. As the method of enhancement, utilization of digital terrestrial broadcasting is confirmed to be extremely effective. This technical paper clarifies the requests for the next-generation VICS system based on the past performance and also reports the progress of the outdoor experiments.
Samenvatting