Transportation

Population Density
These countries also benefit from higher population density, so that investments in intelligent transporta- tion systems in concentrated areas are able to benefit a considerable percentage of their citizens. For exam- ple, 40 percent of the Japanese population lives in the vicinity of Tokyo, and a similar percentage of South Koreans live in the vicinity of Seoul. Singapore has an even higher population density. Deployed ITS systems in these countries thus benefit a greater number of drivers per mile of roadway.


While geography and population density do have some value in explaining country leadership in ITS, they are not the most important factors. For example, there are many locations in the United States that suffer seri- ous geography-imposed capacity constraints, including much of the West Coast, especially California, and cit- ies in the Northeast, where it is very difficult to build new roads (as evidenced by the fact that the United States has not built much new roadway capacity in the past 20 years), but the United States has still under- invested in ITS. Likewise, with regard to population density, many locations in the United States are quite dense (and the United States has a greater number of motorists) so amortizing the costs of ITS system de- ployments should be lower than in other countries, but this fact has not contributed to spurring ITS invest- ment in the United States.