Research, development and field testing of the probe car information system (II).

Vehicles today are equipped with approximately 120 different types of sensors. The probe car information system has been built around the concept of making effective use of the data gathered by these sensors not only for the operation of individual vehicles, but also as information showing the behavior of vehicles, the roads they travel on and the conditions of the natural environment. At the Association of Electronic Technology for Automobile Traffic and Driving (JSK), the paper defines the probe car information system as "a system that regards vehicles as moving probes and collects various types of vehicle-specific sensor data transmitted by vehicles in the form of real-time on-site information for provision to drivers and the public at large." The work of researching and developing the probe car information system was initiated three years ago under a project commissioned to JSK by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). The research committee, including observers from the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in addition to METI representatives, has been proceeding with various R&D activities in the intervening years. In FY 2001, marking the third year of the project, joint research was conducted with the Universal Traffic Management Society (UTMS) of Japan, which has been studying ways of enhancing the provision of traffic information. The theme of that joint effort was the provision of traffic information, especially the calculation of travel times, representing a killer content item of the probe car information system. The joint research work was strongly conscious of advancing the implementation of the system. Efforts were made in this joint activity to verify the reliability and accuracy of travel times obtained with the probe car information system and to examine possibilities for using probe car data to expand and enhance the traffic information currently being provided by other systems. This paper describes the results of field trials conducted from December 2001 through January of the following year.