Our ultimate goal is to reduce fatalities from traffic accidents to zero. The development of safe vehicles is of course important, but it is also essential to educate people, namely drivers and pedestrians, and to ensure safe traffic infrastructure including traffic signals and roads. Toward achieving a safe mobility society, Toyota believes it is important to promote an Integrated Three Part Initiative, involving people, vehicles, and the traffic environment.

Toyota has defined its Integrated Safety Management Concept as the basic philosophy behind technologies which involves pursuing optimal support of all stages of driving, from active safety to rescue, has been adopted as a core concept in technological development.
Toyota has positioned ITS Connect as one such active safety system. We believe that safer vehicle can be made by coordinating cooperative ITS and autonomous systems.

Approximately, 40% of fatalities is occurred at and around intersections in Japan.
Some traffic accidents in Japan, such as rear-end collisions, can be mitigated by autonomous systems which enhance safety through the detection of information that can be perceived from the vehicle.　 However, preventing accidents that occur around intersections requires providing drivers with traffic signal information as well as notifying them of the presence of vehicles or pedestrians outside visible or on-board sensor range.
This technology is known as cooperative ITS and relies on communication from vehicles to vehicles as well as between vehicles and the infrastructure to support safer driving.

Toyota commercialized ITS Connect as cooperative ITS system in October 2015.
The next panel presents the various services offered by ITS Connect in more detail.

In a survey of average customers driving ITS Connect-equipped vehicles, over 70% of customers who actually used the services found them helpful. We received a lot of positive comments wishing to be rolled out nationwide at an early stage.

As of September 2020, we have 16 models with ITS Connect. We plan to expand the numbers of models gradually.

Infrastructure for safety is increasing in each region of the world.

Starting from 2015, more than 200,000 vehicles are on the road in Japan. As of the end of September 2020, roadside units (RSU) are currently installed at 91 intersections.

The number of RSU in the U.S. has increased dramatically from 6,200 at the end of October 2019, and the current plan is to install more than 12,000 by the end of 2020.

The number of RSU in Europe has been installed approximately 900 units as of July 2018, and the current plan is to install 8,000 units as of 2020, and more than 10,000 units in 2021.

In China, Toyota is acting as a partner for V2X projects using LTE technology requested by each provincial government.

In Australia, Toyota is acting as a partner in projects requested by state governments. There are 29 intersections with RSU is deployed, and more than 500 DSRC-equipped vehicles are in field operational tests.

Toyota uses V2X technologies supported by the governments of each region to comply with local policies and regulations, including frequency, for reducing traffic accidents and improving the environment. Therefore, we are using DSRC in Japan, the US and Europe, while verifying LTE-V2X in China, and both DSRC and LTE-V2X in Australia. In addition, V2X-equipped vehicles have been sold by Toyota in Japan, by GM in the United States, and by VW in Europe.

In V2X, where vehicles are connected to various other parties through hybrid communication, which is consisted of established DSRC for safety functions and Cellular-V2N for long-distance network Communications. LTE-V2X has not yet established a standardization plan in the U.S. that is required for safety service of vehicles. Therefore, for the time being, DSRC is the only communication medium that can be used for direct communications in the short range for safety services.

Furthermore, as vehicles are used for 10 to 20 years, DSRC and NGV are considered appropriate technologies, which are compatible and sustainable with the next generation V2X systems.

This is an overview of the Notice of proposed rule-making (NPRM) issued in February 2020 by FCC (the Federal Communications Commission).
In 1999, FCC assigned 75MHz to ITS, in which DSRC has been used to reduce road accidents.
In response to a petition for a lack of Wi-Fi bandwidth and to allocate for C-V2X in 2019, FCC published an NPRM for 5.9GHz to reallocate 45MHz to Wi-Fi out of the currently allocated 75MHz frequency to DSRC in February 2020.
Furthermore, in April 2020, additional brand new 1,200MHz was allocated to 5.925GHz and above for Wi-Fi6.

An analysis of public comments and reply comments submitted from industry-government-academia experts regarding ITS against the FCC's NPRM proposal shows that approx. 90% disagree and support V2X continuously, and DSRC support is clear.

DSRC has been used to reduce 35,000 road fatalities annually, USDOT and state DOT strongly opposes the FCC‘s proposal. USDOT commented that allocating 75MHz to V2X is a necessary for transportation safety in terms of safety-validated, interoperability, backward compatibility, sustainability, inexpensive and reliable technology.