But it warns that failure to take a lead risks future reliance on systems developed abroad, especially in Japan, the US and Korea. The UK, it says, needs to move quickly, "involving the main stakeholders so that they can have influence and full ownership". In fact there are national projects in progress throughout the world, with Japan and the US in the vanguard. In Japan, government ministries and agencies, universities and research laboratories and private corporations have been engaged in ITS-related research and development programmes for many years. The establishment in 1994, however, of the Vehicle Road and Traffic Intelligent Society (Vertis) created a structure that aligned the activities of five ministries and agencies: the National Police Agency, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and the Ministry of Construction, as well as industry and academia.
展开▼