General road signs in Japan

Japan is an island country in the Pacific Ocean in eastern Asia, with a land area of about 378,000 square kilometres and a population of about 125 million, 80 per cent of whom live in cities. Japan is a highly urbanised country. 39 cities were established in 1889, with an urban population of 2.23 million, accounting for about 5% of the total population, but since then the population has continued to gather in cities and the number of cities has soared. 1955, the urban population of Japan reached about 50 million, accounting for 56.1% of the total population of the country, and urbanisation has been basically realised. By 1992, there were a total of 663 cities in Japan, with a combined population of about 96.3 million people, accounting for 77% of the country's population over the same period, at which point Japan had entered a highly developed stage of urbanisation. The reasons for the rapid development and growth of Japanese cities are manifold. In addition to the radical changes in the urban landscape and urban structure brought about by the continuous industrial development since the Meiji Restoration, the development of transport has also played a decisive role in the development of cities.

Japan's highways, city roads, subways, electric railways, Shinkansen, etc., the new transport system consists of a holistic network of inter-city and intra-city transport and convenient interchange transport hubs, so convenient that people can reach any large or medium-sized city in the country without leaving the station. As a result of advanced transport, inter-city connections became easy, and small and medium-sized cities continued to form around large cities, resulting in the formation of a metropolitan area in Japan with large cities at its core. The most typical is the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. Nagoya Metropolitan Area and Osaka Metropolitan Area. Japan's three major metropolitan areas are located in the southern part of Kanto, the central part of the country and the Kansai region, forming the three major metropolitan areas of the city pattern, but also become the main body of Japan's political, economic and cultural activities. The main body of Japan's political, economic and cultural activities are all supported by a strong and modern transport network.

Japan's highway and urban road network is an important part of its modern transport network, and occupies an absolute advantage. Japan is the world's largest road density in the country, the total road mileage has reached 1.136 million km. The country's roads are divided into four categories, of which about 6,000 km, or 0.5 per cent, are motorways; 53,000 km, or 4.5 per cent, are national roads; 124,000 km, or 11 per cent, are prefectural roads; and 953,000 km, or 84 per cent, are municipal roads. In line with the modern road network, Japan's traffic facilities are very perfect, whether it is a general road or high. Expressway, its signs and markings are set up very accurately and comprehensively to ensure road traffic safety and improve the efficiency of road traffic. Japan's wayfinding sign system is basically divided into two major systems, general road wayfinding sign system and motorway wayfinding sign system, and their settings and functional characteristics will be introduced in detail below.

2.3.1 General Road Signs

General road signs mainly refer to the signs installed on national highways, prefectural roads, municipal roads, and provide road users with traffic information such as reachable destinations, directions, and distances, etc. The colour of the sign face is mainly white on a blue background, and some special signs may also take the opposite blue on a white background to form a distinctive contrasting effect.

1. Classification of Wayfinding Signs

(1) Location Sign

(2) Road Number Sign

(3) Location, Direction and Distance Sign

This kind of wayfinding sign mainly conveys the three aspects of location name, distance and travelling direction. According to the actual needs of the site, the sign face can be divided into 1~3 rows, such as: ( a ) can be used in cross intersection, ( b ) can be used in Y-shaped intersection, ( c ) can be used in ordinary bifurcation point.

(4) Location. Distance Signs

This type of wayfinding sign mainly conveys the name of the location in the forward direction and the distance information, and can be arranged in 2~3 rows, but they must all be for the forward direction. This type of sign is usually installed on the road section after an intersection for drivers to further confirm the direction of travel, destination, etc.

(5) Intersection Advance Sign

Intersection Advance Sign is generally set up in front of the intersection 150~350m, mainly advising the driving direction and destination information of the intersection, so it can also be called "Location and Direction Advance Sign", the characteristic of this type of sign is that it must be marked at the bottom of the arrow pattern to arrive at the intersection of the actual distance. In the figure, ( a ). ( b ) ( c ) are three types of previews of intersections, which can be selected according to the actual situation. Among them, ( c ) is the addition of road name information of the horizontal road within the horizontal arrow pattern, and is made as a pattern of blue characters on a white background, which creates a contrasting effect with the other information of the place name. (Classified as System 108 according to the Japanese classification.)

(6) Intersection Signs

Intersection signs have basically the same sign content as intersection preview signs, except that information on the distance to reach the intersection is no longer marked. An intersection sign is generally installed 30~150m in front of an intersection and is relatively close to the intersection, and it is required to clearly indicate the various driving directions and destinations at the intersection.