Skip to main content

Japan takes unique action on road safety

In a bid to tackle the growing problem of collisions caused by deer, transport officials in the Japanese island of Hokkaido have taken drastic action. As well as spraying wolf urine near roads and railways they will also be broadcasting the roar of lions to try to keep the deer away. A spokesman for Nexco East, which runs the island's highways, said: 'Even though we have increased the height of fences to 2.5 metres from 1.5 metres, fences sometimes break because of heavy snow, so we need this stop-gap measu
June 26, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
In a bid to tackle the growing problem of collisions caused by deer, transport officials in the Japanese island of Hokkaido have taken drastic action. As well as spraying wolf urine near roads and railways they will also be broadcasting the roar of lions to try to keep the deer away.

A spokesman for Nexco East, which runs the island's highways, said: 'Even though we have increased the height of fences to 2.5 metres from 1.5 metres, fences sometimes break because of heavy snow, so we need this stop-gap measure while mending them.

Hokkaido Railway Company earlier this year erected equipment that broadcasts the roar of lions in an effort to keep the timid animals away from its tracks, a spokesman said. He added there were 2,581 incidents involving deer last year, a figure that had doubled in less than a decade.

Related Content

  • North Florida signals coordinated approach to congestion management
    October 7, 2013
    David Crawford investigates innovative congestion management in Florida. The largest US city by area is well into the implementation of an ambitious congestion management system (CMS) on the scale of those of higher-profile centres such as Seattle and San Francisco. Regional agency the North Florida Transportation Planning Organisation (NFTPO) aims to ensure that commuters on major highways in Jacksonville can rely on a minimum 72km/h (45mph) driving speed in normal conditions.
  • Roads revolution adds 900 miles of extra capacity
    August 27, 2014
    Road users in the UK will see around 900 extra lane miles of road capacity added to England’s strategic highway network by 2021, a third more than was provided in the previous decade. The boost is thanks to a huge US£39.7 billion investment, the biggest since the 1970s, which will see annual funding for enhancements to motorways and major A roads triple over the next six years. Investment includes more than US$15 billion on maintenance, US$10 billion of which will be spent on resurfacing 3,000 miles of t
  • Scaling up road safety analysis with Aimsun cloud simulation
    May 10, 2023
    Synthetic generation, execution, and analysis of thousands of road safety scenarios is exponentially more efficient and wider ranging than any methodology based on field data. Marcel Sala & Jordi Casas of Aimsun examine the benefits of cloud simulation for safety testing
  • The future of in-vehicle navigation systems
    February 3, 2012
    TRL's Alan Stevens looks at the evolution and future prospects of in-vehicle navigation devices. Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) plays a crucial role in the safety of vehicles on our roads. Until we achieve full automation (and that's a debatable prospect anyway) a driver's interaction with the vehicle - all the controls, information and systems - holds a pivotal role in safe driving.