VICS - right traffic information at the right time
VICS (Vehicle Information and Communication System) is a system for delivering traffic information to car drivers. Car navigation systems receive data from three types of sources: FM broadcast stations (deliver wide-area traffic information), radio beacon devices in highways (deliver information about what's going on at about 200km ahead) , and infrared beacon devices in city streets (deliver information about what's going on within the next 30km).
Using a computerized FM radio broadcast system that collects and sends information from more than 28,000 infrared and radio-wave beacons installed along roads, they can also calculate how many seconds it would take to drive through virtually every block of the nation's cities and then find the fastest routes.
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Yuri Kageyama (2004) Smart Transport Systems Catch on in Japan. Yahoo! News, December 29, 2004. (December 29, 2004)