How the "Platform" Came Out?

Special session 21 on "Speed Adaptation for Safe and Livable Community" at the 11th World Congress on ITS in Nagoya 2004 was held with the following as the panelists: Sadayuki Tsugawa, Dr.Eng., Professor, Meijo University, and Invited Research Fellow, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan; Michael Regan, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Accident Research Centre, Monash University, Australia; Craig Morrison, MBA, Managing Director, Sentinel Geo Systems Pty Ltd, Australia; Torbjörn Biding, Swedish National Road Administration and Chairman of the Steering Committee of SpeedAlert, Sweden; András Várhelyi, Associate Professor. PhD Eng., Department of Technology and Society, University of Lund, Sweden; Vincent Blervaque, Project and Development Manager, ERTICO, Coordinator of SpeedAlert Project and PReVENT Subproject MAPS&ADAS, EU; Ken-ichi Yoshimoto, Dr.Eng., Professor, Saitama Institute of Technology, Emeritus Professor of University of Tokyo, Japan (chairman); and myself(Yukio Oguri, Ph.D., Professor, Chiba University of Commerce, Director of Soft Car Millennium Project Team, Japan,chairman).

It was great that colleagues from three regions of the world, i.e. Europe, Australia and Japan, got together at a place and presented their projects there. However, a 90 minutes session was not enough to show how they were conducting their projects and to develop dialogue what should be done next.

I talked with most of the panelist before the session how to proceed. Should we develop "Nagoya Protocol"? Who give signature to it? We couldn't settle. 30 minutes before the Session, there came panelists to the session room. In the picture above, from left to right, you see Craig Morrison, Torbjörn Biding, András Várhelyi, Michael Regan, and me.

Then, Mike said, in short, "How about a 'platform'？". It was a great idea. During the session, I repeated the word 'platform' in my mind, and at the end of the Session I proposed "World Wide Platform for Safe Speed Initiatives".

You will know what they had been doing and/or are currently doing in coming blogs.

Let Us Now Start World Wide Platform for Safe Speed Initiatives

In 2004, 11th World Congress on Intelligent Transport System(ITS) was held in Nagoya, Japan. I (Oguri: oguri@cuc.ac.jp) organized a special session on "Speed Adaptation for Safe and Livable Community" with attendance of EU, Swedish, Australian and Japanese experts on ITS, who are especially concentrating their efforts on safe speed initiatives.

Speed has been regarded as the most attractive feature of automobiles since their birth at the end of 19th century, and actually attracted enormous number of people, or, in other words, most of the humanity.

Speed has been, on other hand, most dangerous elements of automobiles killing and harming people. Many parts of the cities and villages of the world have been demolished to construct more roads for more cars with the speed of cars as given factor.

To develop harmonious relationship between people, cars and communities, "safe speed" has to be the key concept, and initiatives for safe speed have been taken by many people all over the world.

In the Special Session of Nagoya ITS World Congress, all the panelists and participants agreed to develop "World Wide Platform for Safe Speed Initiatives", and the platform has been working to facilitate mutual communication on such initiatives.

This blog today starts to empower such communication and to develop a strong platform for safe speed initiatives all over the world. Those who wish to inform what is going on in their cities, universities, companies, governments, etc., to invite people to their activities, or to ask help from others, please send me an e-mail to oguri@cuc.ac.jp. Your mail will be posted on this blog. You can simply send URL's and the attachment of pictures and illustration is highly welcome.