TRAFFIC INFORMATION PROVISION DURING APEC MEETINGS

To improve adverse traffic situations such as traffic congestion and accidents resulting from increasingly heavier dependence on vehicular traffic in recent years, Japanese police authorities have been putting forward projects to improve the functions of their traffic control systems aimed at spatial dispersion of traffic flow by aggressively providing traffic information to the road users on wheels. As part of such projects, the Osaka Prefectural Police HQ has already been operating a system which provides traffic information for drivers through facsimile or telephone. Having an eye to new communication media such as PC communication, the police HQ has developed two new systems: a traffic information provision system utilizing PC communication and a traffic information provision system which provides to the Internet the same contents of information as those provided by PC communication. On the occasion of the Osaka Meetings of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Group (APEC) held in Osaka Prefecture in November 1995, the police HQ put both systems to use to prepare for traffic regulation to be enforced on an extensive scale and the consequent congestion expected on roads around the APEC meeting places. The meetings were able to terminate without great confusion in traffic control. This paper outlines the methods of traffic information provision presently in use by the police HQ, the configurations and functions of these two new systems, and information services provided by these systems during the APEC meetings, and reports the effect of each system utilization.