世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently published the results of research by Cross Marketing Inc into car navigation systems. As usual for Cross Marketing, the demographics of the 320 car drivers that completed the internet-based survey were exactly 50.0% of each sex and 25.0% of each age group from twenties to fifties. One thing not made clear in the results is whether or not the people interviewed drove the car for work or leisure, and whether the car was privately owned or a company car.

Car navigation is a wonderful thing, especially in Japan with its rather quirky way of designating addresses and a bit of a dearth of road signs. One minus point is that given the rate that new roads are built, even just a one year old map data set can be out-of-date. For instance, just about every time I have rented a car and gone any significant distance I’ve ended up on a bit of road not on the car navi’s map. Conversely, last time I drove, thanks to the car navi we found a road through the hill at the back of our house, then another rather fun single-track one round the back of the next hill, saving us getting stuck in a 5 kilometre jam in the process.

Q1: Do you have a car navigation system in the car you drive the most? (Sample size=320)

Yes (to SQs)	44.4%
No	55.6%

Q1SQ1: Please tell me the maker of the car navigation system in the car you drive the most. (Sample size=142)

Panasonic	22.5%
Pioneer	13.4%
Mitsubishi	7.7%
Clarion (ADD ZEST)	4.2%
Fujitsu	4.9%
XANAVI	1.4%
Denso	2.1%
Aisin Aw	0.0%
Built-in on purchase, car maker brand	26.1%
Other	9.2%
Don’t know or can’t remember	8.5%

Q1SQ2: Please select all the features the car navigation system has. (Sample size=142, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
VICS (Vehicle Information and Communication System)	94	66.2%
Terrestrial analogue TV tuner	83	58.5%
DVD playback	61	43.0%
MP3 playback	31	21.8%
Memory card support	19	13.4%
Telemetrics (G-BOOK, Car Wings, Inter-navi, etc)	14	9.9%
One seg digital broadcast tuner	5	3.5%
Bluetooth	4	2.8%
CS digital satellite tuner	1	0.7%
BS digital satellite tuner	0	0.0%
Other	1	0.7%
Don’t know what features it has	23	16.2%

Note that whilst by law all car navigation systems should automatically cut off the television display when the vehicle is in motion, many of the aftermarket systems have this feature disabled, so it is not unusual to see drivers watching television on the move.