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Best Practices for Road Weather Management Version 2.0

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Title:

ITS and Winter Traffic Measures in Hokkaido

Abstract:

Hokkaido is the northernmost prefecture of Japan. Winter weather is very severe due to low temperatures and heavy snow. Among Hokkaido's five categories of region-specific transportation issues that need to be solved: comfortable driving on snowy roads, safety and disaster response, supporting tourism-based local industries, improving the roadside environment and for safe and stress-free life, the 1st category is the most important considering the characteristics of Hokkaido. The Hokkaido Development Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, is promoting ITS aggressively as the solutions ? they made "Hokkaido ITS Promotion Plan" in 2001 and conducted "Smart Sappora Snow Information Experiment 2002". This experiment improved the issues by providing snowy mountain pass information, calling attention to road conditions and weather, providing danger warnings for obstacles ahead, and providing visual guidance in poor visibility situations due to snow storms and blowing snow. The experiment demonstrated that proper provision of information can be one means of solving winter road transportation problems and improving winter life.

Source(s):

9th World Congress on ITS. For an electronic copy of this resource, please direct your request to WeatherFeedback@dot.gov.

Date: 2002

Author:

Takashi et al

Keywords:


Weather information
Traveler information
Snow
Blowing/Drifting snow

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