Digital road maps play a key role as the basis for road ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) and various systems for road management. To meet this need among both public and private organizations, the Japan Digital Road Map Association (DRM) was established in 1988 and led the world in standardizing a digital road map database.

Since that time, DRM has greatly expanded the content of this reliable, integrated national database, based on uniform specifications which are open to the public. We continue to make improvements and identify necessary revisions every year. Today, the database is widely used in both public and private areas such as road management by national and regional governments, the Vehicle Information and Communication System (VICS), and car navigation systems.

In moving toward the future second stage of ITS, DRM is working on several projects including the development and spread of the new DRM Standard Format 21, which provides a versatile and expandable database.

In the future, we will continue to exert our best efforts to build a digital road map database that can handle next-generation digital road maps and is truly useful as a common infrastructure for the public and private sectors.

PhD MASUDA, Hiroyuki