The concept for roadside stations came from a January 1990 symposium held by the
Ministry of Construction's Chugoku Regional Construction Bureau: one of the participants suggested that roads could have stations in the same way that railways do. Experiments began in October of 1991 in
Yamaguchi Prefecture,
Tochigi Prefecture, and
Gifu Prefecture, and the system for roadside stations was officially established on February 23, 1993. The first registrations were in April of 1993, resulting in 103 initial roadside stations. On January 30, 2015, a system for "priority roadside stations" was established. The purpose of the system is to provide priority support to roadside stations that are deemed excellent in order to assist with regional revitalization. Priority roadside stations are divided into three categories: •
National Model Roadside Stations: roadside stations which continuously demonstrate outstanding regional revitalization abilities; •
Priority Roadside Stations: roadside stations that have excellent plans for regional revitalization, and are expected to be effective in the future with the assistance of priority support; •
Priority Roadside Station Candidates: roadside stations with the potential to become priority roadside stations. Initially, 6 stations were designated National Model Roadside Stations, 35 were designated Priority Roadside Stations, and 49 were designated Priority Roadside Station Candidates.
Registered roadside stations by year ==Notes==