A STUDY OF THE DRIVERS' NEEDS FOR INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THE HANSHIN EXPRESSWAY

The Hanshin Expressway Corporation has been providing information since 1970. The information is provided through various kinds of devices, and the contents of the information are the travel time, the congestion and the incidents. On the information systems of the next generation, more accurate and detailed information is planned to be provided. However, if too much information is provided to the drivers moving on the expressway, it might be difficult for them to utilize the information because they have to wait carefully until the information they want is provided. Therefore, the identification of the appropriate information for the drivers on various occasions is needed and information should be limited to those. The objective of this study is to identify the needs of drivers to the information provided by the Hanshin Expressway Corporation. Through the analysis using data from questionnaire surveys, the clarification of the drivers' needs for information on various occasions was attempted, and the specifications needed for the next system was discussed. Furthermore, the drivers' response to the information provided through the present system and the situation that the information was effective on drivers' behavior as well as how they changed their behavior by the information were analyzed. For the covering abstract see IRRD E102946.