As an effort to support the earthquake disaster reconstruction of the northeast （Tohoku） region, the “Next generation Energies for Tohoku Recovery （NET） Project” was initiated in 2012. Under this project, Advanced Mobility Research Center （ITS Center）, Institute of Industrial Science （IIS）, The University of Tokyo and New Industry Creation Hatchery Center （NICHe）, Tohoku University has collaborated to promote the research and development of an integrated management system of energy and mobility that supports the sustainable development of disaster resilience regions. This study involves the survey studies of the mobility capability of disaster area residents （including the elderly） during normal and emergency conditions, and the formulation of basic human behavior models.

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Development of technologies to intervene deeply in driving operation such as driver assistance technologies and automated driving technologies are required in recent years. It is expected that the roles of a driving simulator become greater in such situation. This study was conducted to investigate the future needs of the driving simulator and the advanced technologies related to the driving simulator by literature surveys and interviews with relevant organizations. Furthermore, a roadmap of new feature development for the driving simulator was created based on the results.

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For reducing CO₂ emission from road traffic, we constructed a social system to make regional citizens aware of CO₂ emissions and to promote their eco-friendly travel behavior. First, regional traffic situations are discretely observed through monitoring cameras and probe information, and the whole situation in the region is estimated by interpolating simulation. Then, the CO₂ emission is calculated, visualized into the "Regional Transport Information", and displayed to the citizens through web. As a result of field experiments in Kashiwa City in Chiba Prefecture, we could recognize the possibility of roughly 8% reduction of CO₂ emission with the change of travel behaviors.

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Fisheye cameras are widely adopted in the back view camera of vehicles and the surveillance camera. Compared to the normal digital cameras, their resolution and image quality are low. In this paper, we propose a method to restore the high resolution images from the fisheye camera by the reconstructured type of super resolution. First, we undistort the fisheye images and regularize these images. Then we super-resolve these regularized images. Blur kernel for super resolution includes the lens blur and the expansion and reduction by the undistortion. The experimental results confirms to the effectiveness of our method which applies to the images captured by the digital camera with fish-eye lens.

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In recent years, by the spread of sharing services of images and videos, we have come to be able to acquire images and photographs of several cities in the world from the Internet. This information can expect to apply to the three-dimensional model generation of the city and the frequent update of the map or scene simulation, but may cause the presentation of the wrong information when the data of various cities mingles. On the other hand, many researchers try to take the information that a human being perceives out of the information about the scene and study on labeling of the scene, but there are few successful methods to identify images taken from plural cities. Therefore, we aim for the global localization of images which are taken at various cities in the world. In the method, we introduce random forest to learn the information of each city from a street view image, then estimate the city where an inputted image taken from. We proved it using images acquired from 15cities to confirm the effectiveness of the technique.

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Most of traffic accidents occur at intersections. However, driver's visibility at intersections has been studied only through qualitative analyses, so far. This research proposes to analyze the visibility at an intersection quantitatively by using a 3D model of the intersection automatically reconstructed by our MMS（ Mobile Mapping System）, and discusses the factors that affect the traffic accident from the analysis results.

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It is known that traffic congestion can happen under various traffic demand even at the same bottleneck section such as sag section on Expressways in Japan. Such uncertainty of congestion occurrence is basically caused by the difference of individual characteristics of car-following behavior. This paper reports a part of a research which aims to quantify the influence of individual car-following characteristic on congestion at sag section. A framework of car-following model including grade effects is introduced. Model parameters for each vehicle for the proposed model are calibrated with observed slope trajectories of vehicles at a sag section. Correlations on parameter distributions are analyzed and clustered to reflect various drivers' characteristics.

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One limitation of point-based detectors is their inability to estimate directional demand （i.e. number of leftturners, through, and right-turners） at intersections. This affects traffic signal systems that have separate rightturn phases. Right-turners often experience significantly longer waiting times due to short green-time allocations despite low demand in other directions from the same approach. We developed a method for estimating rightturn demand and travel times by combining high-resolution detector data and probe data from infrared beacons （UPLINK data）. The method was tested on real-world traffic data and the potential effect of improving greentime allocation is shown.

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The purpose of this study is to validate the Nowcast Traffic Simulation System （NTSS） using probe data in Kashiwa city. In this paper, we introduce the theory of NTSS and the compendium of the probe data in Kashiwa city. And we describe the characteristics of probe data on Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram （MFD）changing the mesh sizes. In addition, we picked up some issues to use the data for NTSS by comparing the statuses on MFD in different mesh sizes. On the basis of the analysis, the applicability of the probe data is discussed for estimating all of vehicle movements by NTSS.

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Emergency transportation service can take emergency patients to hospitals, which is one of the most important governmental services. Now in Japan, the population is decreases and the demand of the calls for ambulance is predicted to increase. Therefore, it is requested that we make the service as efficient as possible and we have an appropriate scheme from mid and long-term perspectives how the degree of the level of service should be kept. This research investigates the actual status of the service towards its effective operation. In this paper, the transportation time is divided into 5 stages, time for order, preparation, arrival, staying, sending. Then, estimation models of the required time of these 5 stages are constructed, and the models are applied to the current service provided in Matsuyama-city. As a result, it is shown that these 5 models can estimate these times with sufficient accuracy.

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Abstract This paper proposes a traffic volume estimation method which only requires probe vehicle trajec- tories data. The proposed method estimates traffic volumes （states） at intermediate locations between two consecutive probe vehicles by using the kinematic wave theory. This enables us to fully utilize rich infor- mation of probe vehicle trajectories which include driving modes and reflect traffic conditions. By testing the method using real-world data, we demonstrate that the traffic volumes can be estimated by low-frequency probe vehicle data when traffic states are congested.

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Roads make a crucial contribution to economic development and growth and bring important social benefits. Regular road maintenance is economic and social importance. A major cause of road damage is a heavy-duty vehicle. Therefore, weight of vehicle is limited by law. Crackdown on overloaded vehicles is social issues, and perform simulations for weight estimation based on natural frequency. In this study, we focus on natural frequency change of a vehicle caused by change in the weight.
Simulation results of natural frequencies are shown as basic study for weight estimation based on natural frequency.

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Driving characteristic is very important for improving the highway traffic safety and developing driving assistant systems. In this paper, we focused on drivers' driving characteristic during curve driving. We performed a series of experiments using a driving simulator on a special designed course including several left and right curves. Specially, in order to make clear the relation between the driving operations and the cortical brain activity corresponding to road geometry, the cortical brain activity was also measured by a functional near-infrared spectroscopy （fNIRS）. We analyzed the characteristic differences of driving operations about left/right curves. Furthermore, accordantly difference of activation of brain regions between left/right curves was also extracted independently.

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Analysis of driving characteristic can be used in building more flexible driver behavior model which is very important in developing operation support system that can be adapted to individual needs of a driver. In this paper, attention has paid to drivers behave before driving into curve. We performed experiments using a real vehicle in a test course. The cortical brain activity was measured by a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Meanwhile, we also operated the same experiments using a driving simulator on a course which was built based on the test course. Results would be helpful for understanding drivers' behavior in curving driving.

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A new steering interface was designed to develop an innovative steering system for our assisted human powered vehicle. In order to evaluate the steering maneuverability of the innovative steering system, we had conducted ergonomics study by Electromyography （EMG）. The EMG signals of the human driver’s shoulder and upper limb muscles were acquired via experiments to investigate the physiological behaviors of the steering maneuvers. From the analysis, we had identified the main muscles and characteristics involve in the steering maneuver of this innovative steering system.
The article was presented at the JSME TRANSLOG 2014 on December 1, 2014.

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The objective of this work is to address the instability （inverse torque） caused by the tilt actuator in a narrow tilting vehicle by counterbalance it with a stability control system with gyro moment. A four-wheel narrow tilting vehicle was modeled in a multibody dynamics software to conduct a vehicle motion simulation with sharp steers, in order to investigate the gyro effects on the vehicle lateral acceleration （rollover resistance）. From the results of the simulation, the inner tire displacements from ground and wheel loads were determined to analyze the vehicle stability. It was proven by the simulation that the stability control system with gyro moment had improved the rollover resistance of the narrow tilting vehicle.
The article was presented at the JSME MOVIC 2014 on August 5, 2014.

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Prototype ASV services using LRT-to-Automobile communication have been developed. In supposed fundamental situations between a tramcar and a car, data for functional verification has been collected during field operation test in Hiroshima. The prototype service have satisfied functional requirements for safety driving support of tramcar drivers.

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Promising opportunities for generating coordination among vehicles are provided by the development of vehicle-to-vehicle communication and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. In this paper, an advanced driver assistance system using in-vehicle traffic lights will be proposed for un-signalized intersections. By applying this system, in the case of un-signalized intersections, passing rules will be designed based on the road traffic act and traffic lights calculated will be displayed in vehicles for drivers. A driving simulator will be applied to simulate the vehicle-to-vehicle communication and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication. Experiments will also be conducted to investigate the effectiveness of in-vehicle traffic lights assisting a driver to pass unsignalized intersections.

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The in-vehicle traffic light is used to displays the traffic signal based on the information transmitted from the ground traffic signal using infrastructure-to-vehicle communication technology. However, while drivers need to observe the display to recognize the signal of the in-vehicle traffic light, it is necessary to measure the gaze motion to evaluate the safety. In this study, the effect of the mode of the in-vehicle traffic light and the methods to display the signal on drivers' behavior was evaluated by the operation of the drivers, the gaze motion, and the questionnaire in the experiments using the driving simulator.

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Haptic guidance control is useful as a driver assistant system since it can guide the drivers by providing steering torque without imposing much stress on the vision of the drivers. This paper proposes to apply haptic steering to the lane change assistance with trajectory guidance, where the assistant torque instructs the drivers to choose the target course intuitively. A driving simulator experiment was carried out to evaluate responses of the drivers to the different kinds of assistant steering torques. The experimental results indicate amplitude of the assist torque has much effect on the performance to instruct the lane change and smoothness of steering.

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Driving drowsiness is an important factor which leads to road accident. Indeed a recent statistic study led by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that each year, 100,000 vehicle accidents are related to drowsiness. Drowsiness can be a symptom of deprived people’s lifestyle as well as situational parameters. Indeed lengthening of daily activities and consequently decrease of rest time increase risk of drowsiness. Moreover consumption of alcohol, breakfast skipping and food over-consumption increase risks of drowsiness. Mechanical arm admittance is a biomechanical feedback which represents the driver steering answer to steering perturbations and also express driver’s intentions. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between drowsiness and mechanical arm admittance.

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Development of metropolitan ring roads and successive certification of world cultural heritages across the country should be the situation of tailwind for inbound tourism to Japan. This paper proposes functional requirements to introduce effective infra-light ICT that would both promote additional trips in surrounding local areas and appeal abundant tourism resources, based on serial experiments of recommending additional visits to tourist facilities at large shopping center and simple traffic survey of a large-scale event in Gotemba, Shizuoka prefecture, core city in transportation, logistics and tourism.

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The delay of mode cooperation between urban transportation and regional feeder traffic has declined public transportation services in many rural areas.　This requires improvement of public transportation including service aspects such as fare system simplification and transportation information guidance.
This study has proved the effectiveness of information cooperation among public transport modes, as the result of social experiment in Kashiwa station that provide transportation information among different operators of railways and bus has been conducted using smartphone and digital signage.

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Japan has a longstanding heritage of wooden house, and have built the town. As we plan the reconstruction of the Great East Japan Earthquake in Yabuki town, Fukushima Prefecture, we propose the town planning using wood to one of the challenges. In this paper, by organizing the characteristics of traditional Japanese wooden architecture up until now, tasks and goals for new town planning have been indicated, applying latest wooden architecture technology.

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25% of Japanese municipalities are between the size of 10,000 to 30,000 population. As being in the size of 18,000 population, the policy of Yabuki Town can be the model of other small towns. Although, the shift from the town area expansion to more compact town is needed for the coming aging society. The report shows the issues of current urban master plan and town regeneration plan.

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This research presents a solution that classifies disaster responses by disaster process engineering to provide the total disaster responses in terms of time. The purpose of this paper is to achieve effective initial response activities immediately after disaster strikes. The initial responses taken by the local government of Yabuki town located in Fukushima prefecture where was most heavily damaged during the Tohoku disaster are analyzed in this paper. Around 500 processes are defined with those relations and the developed database can provide necessary items easily.

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Since 2011 Muramatsu laboratory has been to expand the research and activities such as workshops to consider how to conserve and use the Taisho Roman no Yokata which was damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake in Fukushima Prefecture Yabuki. And now, we are preparing work for the support of landscape planning of next year's Yabuki. In this paper, I’d like to the show the background, purpose, subject, and the future image of landscape planning measures in Yabuki next year. It would be the foundation of future discussion.

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As the primary project for the regeneration of Yabuki Town, the design of public housing and community center has began in 2014. The objectives of the design are based on the "Yabuki Regeneration Plan" that IIS had submitted in February 2014, setting the goals of （1） the promotion of town center habitation, （2） the upgrading of town scape with wooden structure, （3） the creation of community center. This report describes how the actual design is ongoing.

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