Realizing Sustainable Society

Traffic congestion due to the overconcentration of population, industry and traffic to urban areas is a major cause for increased emissions of NO2 and SPM, and noise, and worsens the environment along roads.
In the international movement to prevent global warming, Japan produces about 5% of the global volume of CO2 emissions, 19% of which is from automobile traffic. It is necessary to reduce fuel wasting during congestion to cut CO2 emissions.

NO2 (NOx/PM Improvement Mandated areas)

SPM (NOx/PM Improvement Mandated Areas)

For NO2, large urban areas that are NOx/PM improvement mandated areas, roughly 20% of
measurement stations have not met requirements.
For SPM, roughly 40% of measurement stations have not met requirements in the same areas.

Environmental Quality Standards for Noise Pollution (FY2003)

Daytime:70dB		Nighttime:65dB
	Nation-wide (8,619km)
	Metropolitan areas (944km)
	The others (7,674km)

Realizing sustainable society is a target of road improvement; including CO2 reduction to address global environmental issues, improvement of roadside environment, and harmony with nature.
To accomplish this target, efforts are made to eliminate congestion with traffic smoothing measures such as improving road networks including bypasses and ring roads and improved intersections, and also to improve road side environment with structural measures such as the environmental facilities or noise barrier walls and use of low noise pavement.

High-performance Pavement with Noise Reduction Effects
[ Regular pavement ] No routes exist for air between a tire and pavement surface to escape, causing noises of compressed and expanded air.	[ Low noise pavement ] Air can escape through pores, reducing noise.