RTRI REPORT January 1999

Advanced Railway Transport Systems and ITS

Takahiko OGINO


  Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) is becoming more and more popular. In Japan, some of the actual deployment of ITS, such as, VICS (Vehicle Information and Communication System) has started and received a good reputation. On the other hand, railways seem to be silent to the movement. In this article, ITS, particularly, the National ITS Architecture of the United States is introduced. The author shares the idea that ITS would be a big threat to railways. At the same time, he does not believe in the negative thought railways should shrink its size and role. Instead, the author proposes Advanced Railway Transport Systems (ARTS or informally CyberRail), a vision of railway systems in the 21st Century. We have enough technology and opportunity. The lack is to draw an attractive picture of the railways in the 21st Century.



Copyright (c) 1999 Railway Technical Research Institute