IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ETC SYSTEM IN JAPAN

The Japanese toll roads extend as long as 8,800 km as of April 1 1997, and are controlled by a number of toll road authorities with different toll charge rates. The Japanese toll roads are unique in the sense of forming a huge nationwide network. Because of these Japanese toll road characteristics, when an interoperable electronic toll collection (ETC) system is introduced in Japan, it is necessary to have a unified policy concerning payment and clearing scheme and on-board equipment (OBE) handling. This is a clear contrast to the ETC system operations in other countries where each toll road authority installs a different system independently. Concerning payment mode, there are two choices, prepayment and postpayment. Regarding OBE, there are two types of physical construction, one-piece (all in one) type and two-piece (on-board unit (OBU) and IC card) type. There are also two ways of OBE instalment, fixed or detachable. There are also two choices of OBE circulation, lease or sale. Appropriate set of choices is being discussed taking experts' and users' opinions into consideration. ETC is expected to be a pioneer in the field of intelligent transport systems (ITS) technologies applications and ETC's social and economic benefits are quite highly estimated. A calculation is tried to evaluate these benefits and also to compute necessary costs for cost-benefit analysis. For the covering abstract, see IRRD 490001.