About the use situation such as Expressway the Tohoku region at the end of the year

January 5, 2006
East Nippon Expressway Co., Ltd.
Tohoku Regional Head Office

• Number of use
  The average number of Expressway used by Tohoku Regional Head Office per day was approximately 217,000 units, which was 9 during the same period last year [December 27, 2004 (Monday) to January 4, 2005 (Tuesday)]. Compared to the day, it increased by about 6.5% (last year, it averaged about 204,000 units).
  *The number of passengers used is the number of passengers charged at the toll gate exit.
  ■About increase in number of units used
  The factors behind the increase in the number of passengers are likely to be the recovery of the economy and the decrease in suspension of traffic. In this winter, extremely strong cold air intermittently flowed in, and there were many days with strong winter-type atmospheric pressure arrangements, resulting in abnormally low temperatures and record heavy snowfall. As a result, there were many snowy days in the Tohoku region, and there were 27 times (last year: 24 times) of road closures caused by snowstorms for more than 5 hours. However, we were able to reduce the total suspension time by about 20% compared to last year by carrying out the work such as snow removal quickly and efficiently day and night.
  *<​Traffic closure status [PDF:16KB]>
• Usage status of ETC
  Compared to last year, the number of ETC users used during the year-end and New Year period was about 2.4 times higher than last year, thanks to the advertising effects such as ETC time zone discounts and mileage discount campaigns.
• Congestion
  10km or more of the traffic jam, because of the New Year's Eve accident closed to traffic of the impact on December 31 (Saturday), Tohoku Expressway Out-bound in the same scale as last year although the congestion of about 13km at maximum occurs once at the beginning of the Shiraishi IC of the line did.
  (Last year, there was one traffic jam of 10km or more due to the traffic closure.)