The Kashiwa ITS Promotion Council, which aims for “ITS that grows together with people and communities,” has focused as much on promoting citizen understanding and cooperation with the local community as it has on research and development of ITS that makes full use of cutting-edge technology. As we have explained, ITS is only a tool, and if the citizens who use it do not understand and are not involved, it will not achieve the anticipated effects. For this reason, it is important to increase citizen awareness and deepen cooperation with the community.
　However, such a relationship of trust with citizens cannot be built overnight. For this reason, the Kashiwa ITS Promotion Council has been continuously disseminating information on ITS from the planning stage, while at the same time understanding the needs of citizens and promoting citizen participation through social experiments and other activities. In parallel with the activities of the Council, the member organizations that make up the Council are also actively engaged in daily activities and information dissemination within the community. With the big vision of creating a Kashiwa ITS Smart City, the Council’s educational activities and individual information dissemination by member organizations work in a multilayered manner to increase public understanding and promote ITS in concert with the community. We believe that such educational activities are indispensable to realize our goal of “ITS that grows together with people and communities.

How to arouse citizens’ interest in daily traffic conditions and Kashiwa ITS Smart City activities is an important point in realizing Kashiwa ITS Smart City. ITS can only grow together with the understanding and cooperation of citizens. For this reason, we believe it is important to regularly disseminate information and educate the public.
Kashiwa ITS Smart City has designated October 2013, the month in which the ITS World Congress Tokyo 2013 will be held, as “ITS Month.” With the cooperation of three commercial facilities in the city, public sports facilities, and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, we will communicate Kashiwa ITS Smart City’s initiatives in an easy-to-understand manner. The event is designed to attract families by introducing transportation systems that are already being tested in Kashiwa City, such as “multi-transit” and “on-demand transportation,” as well as new technologies such as “eco-rides” and “wireless charging,” using “karuta”-style panels. The event is designed to attract the interest of families. We hope that people who are even slightly interested will participate in the social experiments and visit the “University of Tokyo Kashiwa Campus Open House” on October 25 and 26 to experience the cutting-edge technologies being worked on at Kashiwa ITS Smart City. We believe that the accumulation of such regular educational activities is an indispensable initiative for ITS to grow together with the local community.

■ITS Month/Karuta-style panel

■ITS Month Exhibition Schedule

LaLaport Kashiwanoha: Thursday, September 26 – Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Mallage Kashiwa : Thursday, October 3 – Wednesday, October 9, 2013
AEON MALL Kashiwa: Thursday, October 10 – Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Refresh Plaza Kashiwa: Thursday, October 17 – Friday, October 25, 2013
Kashiwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry: October 9 (Wed) – 23 (Wed), 2013
The University of Tokyo Kashiwa Campus Open House: Friday, October 25 and Saturday, October 26, 2013

Nanotech Corporation is a supervisory member company of the Kashiwa ITS Promotion Council, headquartered in Kashiwa City, which has been selected as an Environmental Future City.
With an awareness of environmental and energy issues, we started a car and bike sharing initiative within our group companies in 2011, using the Kashiwa ITS demonstration project as a reference. We have selected eco-friendly vehicles that use electricity as their energy source, such as plug-in hybrids (PHVs), electric cars and electric bikes (EVs).
　The unique feature of our car and bike sharing initiative is that the electricity used by the eco-cars comes from natural energy sources such as solar and wind power. Thus, the eco-cars are operated without burdening the environment. The power generation system using this natural energy, designed and assembled by our company, has a power generation capacity of 10KW class.
When using eco-cars, we use small EVs that can seat one or two people when traveling alone to nearby facilities. For long-distance trips or transporting customers, we use a five-passenger PHV. In this way, we select an eco-friendly vehicle according to the number of passengers and the purpose of the trip, so as not to consume energy unnecessarily.
In the future, we hope to establish a management system similar to the multi-transportation sharing system that Kashiwa ITS is currently testing, so that the number of users will increase.