GOTO the Islands of EVITS

2010.10.12

(Date: 12 October 2010)

New Sightseeing Tourism focused on EV and ITS technologies

ITS Japan is supporting the ITS activities in the various local areas in Japan to promote the ITS for practical use.

One of the important ITS projects is the one for attracting the tourist with the effective and useful EV and ITS technologies in Goto islands, Nagasaki prefecture in the Kyusyu districts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Got%C5%8D_Islands).

The highlight is the heritages of churches and it’s related relics there.　Goto city and Nagasaki prefecture are making their best effort to preserve the beautiful panorama of the sea and archipelagos surrounding those heritages. They are working to register these assets as one of ”The World Heritage” by UNESCO, and also promoting the new sightseeing tourism using EV with ITS technologies. The project is to provide the tourists with public transport information, optimal sight seeing route guidance, quick charging station guidance via DSRC infrastructure.  The project will also improve the convenience by connecting the public transportation with the electric powered rent-a-cars and taxis, and also deploying photovoltaic power generation systems as well as quick charging stations.  And the DSRC systems will also enable the automatic collection of charging fees and parking fees.
They have already installed 100 EVs and PHVs in the year 2010.  In July 2010, the demonstration parade of the 100 EVs and PHVs in the island was overwhelming, and was officially authorized as one of the Guinness World Records.  They now plan to have additional 100 EVs and PHVs in 2011.
The project is promoted by the “Nagasaki EV & ITS” consortium. This consortium established in October 2009, consisting of 140 members from ministries, local governments, academia, related associations and manufacturers of automobile, infrastructure and car-navigation.

In the 17^th ITS World Congress Busan 2010, you can experience the project in a congress tour ” PT4 Fukuoka & Nagasaki, Japan” joins, and Special Session 18 “GOTO EV & ITS island” Driving Tours of the Future” as well as in the exhibition stand.  The congress tour, PT4 combines the technical visit to Fukuoka prefecture (neighboring to Nagasaki Prefecture) such as Smart IC (interchange for the exclusive use of ETC) and Park & Ride system.