KYUSHU HIGHWAY BUS LOCATION SYSTEM

摘要

Expressway bus service has been offering a critical means of public mass transit andrnproviding benefits to numerous users. It has, however, been plagued by such problems asrndelays in operation due to traffic congestion and provision of insufficient operationrninformation to expressway bus users. In the meantime, the development of highways has beenrnlagging behind the increase of privately owned automobiles. Solving transportation problemsrnsuch as traffic congestion, accidents and environmental deterioration, in urban areas inrnparticular, is required. In order to attend to such problems, and to increase the benefits forrnexpressway bus users and to assess the possibility of reducing transportation problems byrnencouraging the shift from private automobiles to expressway buses, verification tests havernbeen conducted for the Kyushu highway bus location system since 2001 that providesrnreal-time information on bus operation on expressways.rnThis paper describes the enhancement made to the system based on the opinions and desiresrnreceived from expressway bus users and operators during a verification test conducted inrn2001, and provides the results obtained in a verification test conducted in 2003 on the busrnroutes where information was presented on bus operation.