Transportation

Cultural Factors
Cultural factors contribute to explaining international country leadership in ITS to a certain degree. A unique reason why Japanese consumers were among the earli- est adopters of satellite-based navigation systems per- tains to the country’s residential address numbering

system. Unlike in the United States, where residential addresses follow a sequential numbering system by street, the Japanese system numbers houses by the year in which they were built, making finding a particular house on a street a real challenge. Satellite-based in- vehicle navigation systems thus addressed a particular painpoint for Japanese motorists, finding an early, en- thusiastic marketplace.

In Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, increased transportation demand coupled with a limited ability to expand physical supply has driven these countries to adopt intelligent transportation systems.

Another contributing non-policy factor for Japan’s ITS leadership has been a general disposition among Japanese consumers towards being (often price neu- tral) first adopters of new technologies and devices.¹⁵⁸ As Wired Magazine notes, “Neat-looking gadgets are a core aspect of one’s identity in Japan.”¹⁵⁹ The same holds true for South Koreans.

According to Dr. Keung-Whan Young of ITS Ko- rea, a cultural factor contributing to the demand for intelligent transportation systems in South Korea has been that “The Korean people want to get informa- tion anytime, anywhere, at any place; it’s part of their ethnic heritage that people will want to know informa- tion about their family and relatives and their safety and whereabouts. For example, Korean parents will give their kids mobile phones as early as age five to be able to communicate in real-time in case there is an accident.”¹⁶⁰ Dr. Young argues that this cultural in- sistence for access to real-time information in South Korea has translated into popular demand and support for advanced public transportation systems in South Korea, noting that, “public transit users want to know, ‘Where is my bus?’; ‘When is it coming?’; ‘Why is it late?’” Dr. Young argues that the demand for real-time information and awareness in South Korea contribut- ed to popular backing of funding for APTS solutions such as Seoul’s Bus Information System (not to men- tion consumer adoption of real-time traffic informa- tion services).

One final cultural factor deserving mention is that citi- zens in most Asian countries have been less deterred

by privacy concerns than U.S. citizens. It is perhaps a cultural strength that these countries are better at putting their heads down and forging ahead, being less concerned with theoretical harms that might oc- cur than with the specific benefits they can realize from deploying intelligent transportation systems or other advanced technologies.¹⁶¹ In contrast, in the United States there has been active opposition to red light cameras, to satellite-based vehicle-miles traveled systems, and even to electronic toll collection because of privacy concerns. These types of privacy concerns do not appear to be raised as extensively in countries leading the world in ITS.