Mazda to Partake in Its Trials in Hiroshima Public Roads

By: Kraig Johanssen

Mazda Motor Corporation, maker of , will be participating in the public road trials that will begin in fall 2007 in Hiroshima to help validate a new Intelligent Transport System (ITS) and to advocate further road safety.

With the use of modern innovative telecommunications, Intelligent Transport Systems create an information network linking people, roads and vehicles. This modern traffic system is built to work on solutions for transport problems like road accidents, congestion and damage to the environment.

To come about with an in-car navigation system that supports the Intelligent Transport Systems is Mazda's role in the validation of these trials. The car maker will also supply many test vehicles from which data will be collected and analyzed. Aside from these, Mazda is developing a safe driving support system that will be matched with the ITS infrastructure. ---It is an arrangement of cameras and sensors placed along roads which will transmit information to drivers.

As part of a consortium of the local government, academe and industry in the Hiroshima, Mazda will take part in the public road tests.

The consortium was formed during the 2006 Hiroshima Conference on ITS Validation on Public Roads wherein the Chair was Prof. Akimasa Fujiwara of Hiroshima University Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation (IDEC). The conference held discussion on trials of the latest ITS technologies in the 2007-2008 periods and covered activities to encourage the expansion of ITS systems all through out Japan.

The Hiroshima has many road environments that are perfect for any verification trials such as the many number of bridges over the many rivers in the Hiroshima area include arched bridges with dangerous blind summits. Aside from this, there are also roads that hold both trams and motor vehicles that have complex traffic dynamics. Low lands and mountain regions that are closely situated together can create surprising variations in weather and road surface conditions.

There are 6 equipments/systems to be tested. These are used to identify the limit of road mobbing, to warn over speeding, to avoid rear-end collisions at traffic signals, to support in preventing head-on collision, to support in preventing a right-turn collision (to identify approaching wagons, oncoming traffic and pedestrians crossing the street), and fro in-transit information.

Those systems to be tested compares information from the ITS infrastructure and from vehicles, the vehicle condition and the driver operation, to monitor flows of traffic in the locality as well as individual driver responses. This information is then used to detect possible dangerous situations and to decide whether a warning or an alarm should be triggered or not. Indeed, this technology is a huge step towards functionality as compared to previous ITS systems which only provided information to drivers.

Mazda aims to utilize the trials to establish ITS technologies that can be used. The car maker also aims to introduce the technologies in the near future to minimize the number of traffic accidents and to lessen the negative effect of transportation on the environment.

About Mazda Motor Corporation
A Japanese automotive manufacturer that is based in Hiroshima, Japan, Mazda Motor Corporation is a well known producer of different types of vehicles and their parts. It began supplying tools in 1929 and soon branched out into production of trucks for commercial purposes.

The manufacturer's name is derived from the transcendental God of Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda. It is also believed that Mazda coincides with the anglicized pronunciation of Zoroastrianism founder's name, Jujiro Matsuda, and opted to rename it in honor of both his family and the believers of Zoroastrianism. In the Avestan language, Mazda means "wisdom". Nonetheless, because the company is from Japan, the name has always been pronounced and spelled as "Matsuda". This leads the public to believe that "Mazda" is just an anglicized version of the founder.

The company is expected to produce 1.25 million vehicles annually as of 2006. Among Japan, Europe, North America, and Latin America, its sales will be evenly divided.

Mazda's 33.4% of controlling interest is controlled by the Ford Motor Company.

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