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In 1990, The Japanese National Police Agency (NPA) planned a nationwide two-year research project including field experiments, “Travel Time Estimation and Prediction” aimed at realizing a reliable method of providing travel time information to drivers (1)*. The project was conducted by the Japan Traffic Management Technology Association and three system manufacturers (Sumitomo Electric, OMRON and Matsushita Communication) collaborated on research and experimental work. Several methods of estimating and predicting travel time were developed and evaluated in three major cities (Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka). Four models, Sandglass, Delay Time, Auto Regressive and Neural Network Models were developed and evaluated using detector and license plate reader information, and field survey data in the three major cities. The first year evaluation results are described here.

In the early 1970's, the CACS project started concurrently with the introduction of traffic signal control systems in urban streets and of systems for presenting traffic information on freeways to solve the severe problems of traffic congestion, traffic safety and air pollution. The goal of CACS was broken down into many sub-projects and pursued in the ATICS project for advanced traffic management and in several small projects in the early 1980's. The planning for the well known RACS and AMTICS projects in the late 1980's was based on this accumulation of knowledge. The expectation of greater business opportunities stimulated the participants and led some large-scale of projects to success. Twenty years of continuous experience will be effectively used in planning the new IVHS projects for the early 1990's, including the Next Generation Highway Traffic Systems and Super Smart Vehicle System projects.