Section5 Activities for Standardization

The 6th U.S.-Japan Workshop on ITS was held in October 1998 at the Public Works Research Institute of Japan's Ministry of Construction (now National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management) and it was decided that both countries would continue to closely cooperate for improving Smartway technologies (see 1-17,18,19,20,21,22). In 2000, when the 8th U.S.-Japan Workshop was held, the ITS Joint Research Program to study common problems was started in order to build stronger cooperative ties, and further promote research and development.

This was followed by the meeting between Japan's Ministry of Construction (now Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport) and French National Institute for Transportation and Transport Safety (INRETS) in October 1998, and the 1st Japan-UK Road Workshop between Japan's Ministry of Construction (now Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport) and British Highways Agency in December 1998, at both of which agreements to continuously exchange information and opinions on Smartway were reached. In October 2000, the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Transport (which were rolled into the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in January 2001) jointly conducted proving tests for the Systems called "Joint Tests" on the test course of the Public Works Research Institute of the Ministry of Construction (now National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management) in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture. From November 1999, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport solicited participants from Japan and overseas to attend proving tests for AHS (Advanced Cruise-Assist Highway Systems), in order to promote international cooperation and partnership among the national government, academia, and private companies for research and development on the road-to-vehicle communication system and for international standardization: participants from overseas include Hyundai Motor Company (Korea), Daimler Chrysler AG (Germany), and University of California, Berkeley (United States).

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport worked diligently to build international cooperation for ITS and promote international standardization: during the proving test program, it organized the third U.K.-Japan Workshop in parallel with "Demo 2000 (held between November 28 and December 1, 2000)."