12 car sharing field tests were trialed in Japan on December 2002. Almost projects used Electric Vehicles and are high-density population areas. The results of the tests have important outcomes to car sharing planning. Car sharing planners need the model of demand estimation, and growth speed. Car sharing managers need allocating model by the flexible fee system and variable parking locations. In urban areas with high density and accessible public transport, car sharing has great potential demand.

View full abstract

Without redistribution of vehicles by operator, a multiple-station shared vehicle system may not meet all the demand, because the vehicles in the fleet may be distributed unevenly across the stations due to the directionality in demand, making it impossible to accommodate demands with certain combinations of origin and destination stations. A simulation model is developed to investigate the effects on system performance of many factors including the number of stations, the number of vehicles, the parking capacity, the size of the demand, and the one way trip rate. System performance is represented by a set of measures including the number of trip served by the system and the total time the vehicle is in use. The results suggest that the performance of a system with 100 stations and that of 10 systems with 10 stations each are the same if the other conditions are the same, and that increasing the number of the parking stalls is more effective than increasing the number of stations.

View full abstract

Car sharing systems for commercial pickup/delivery trucks have great potentials to reduce the number of vehicles in urban areas by establishing efficient urban logistics systems and shifting car commuters using company cars into public transport. This paper presents social effects of car sharing systems using electric vans in Osaka, Japan as well as analyses on the feasibility of real operation for the systems incorporating the total costs incurred in the test project and the willingness to pay of companies who have been interested in the systems.

View full abstract

This paper reports the user's behavior on the electric assisted bicycle-sharing system which has been applied at the Funabashi campus of Nihon University since August 2001. This system can be used among 18 neighbors and 80 staffs and students of the university to access to the Funabashi Nichidaimae Station and travel around neighborhood. Based on analysis of recorded data such as frequency, mileage, etc. during last two years, this system seem to be applicable at certain areas. However, the estimated discrete choice models for feeder mode show that the system is not acceptable for the most of commuters in terms of cost. Thus, further study is recommended to reveal user's willingness to pay for this system.

View full abstract

This paper aims to develop a travel demand prediction model of transit services for the elderly in rural depopulated areas. The developed model predicts individual travel frequency of transit services. A discrete-continuous model is adopted to simultaneously represent not only transit choice probability, but also its travel frequency. A simultaneous estimation procedure for the model is also proposed. Furthermore, a non-compensatory utility function is employed to represent conjunctive choice strategies. Results of model estimation show that the discrete-continuous model can properly predict travel frequency of transit services. It is also found that the model is effective to evaluate the effects of improving levels of transit services and consequently can contribute to more efficient transit service planning.

View full abstract

Rural and mountainous areas in Japan (covering 70% of the total area and 13% of the population) are characterized by poorer level of public transit services and higher car ownership than in urbanized areas. Most of the elderly usually depend on “deliver/pick-up” by other household members when going=out. This paper therefore aims to develop a new household time allocation model, which can represent heterogeneous intra-household interaction based on iso-elasticity social welfare function. Throughout an empirical analysis using activity dairy data collected from a rural and mountainous area in Shimane prefecture, the effectiveness of the proposed model was confirmed. Furthermore, model applicability to evaluate the influence of the elderly transportation policies was examined based on simulation analysis.

View full abstract

This paper proposes a pedestrian's route choice model considering the effect of physical conditions on the street. On the street in a central city area, it is generally thought that a pedestrian density and a signal system affect a pedestrian's route choice more than other basic conditions affect. We suggest the model in which new factors like a pedestrian density and a signal system are added to the basic conditions. With respect to an individual difference and an occasional difference, the former and the latter are expressed as a probability distribution and a threshold method, respectively. The results of applying the model to an actual city area reveal the relation between a pedestrian's decision-making about the route choice and various conditions on the street, and show the possibility of pedestrian guidance or inducement by a road maintenance and improvement.

View full abstract

In the process of a flood disaster, a lot of disaster information which are weather forecast, river information and so on are informed to residents. However, residents do not necessarily acquire their information actively. Therefore, from the viewpoint of communication of disaster information, formation of resident's intention to acquire disaster information is important. In this study, we analyze the situation of resident's intention to acquire disaster information and its effect on their crisis consciousness and action for mitigation in the process of the flood. Moreover, we analyze the determination factors of intention to acquire disaster information, and we consider the condition that residents acquire disaster information actively.

View full abstract

As flood advances greater, inhabitants have a tendency to perceive a lot of information signaling imminent danger, such as changes of circumferential situation, disaster information, evacuation order and so on. In this study, we take notice of this process, and grasp the effect of information signaling imminent danger on determination process of inhabitants' consciousness and behavior for flood disaster, using the data from a questionnaire survey instancing the case of residents of Koriyama in flood by Typhoon 6 in July 2002. In this examination, we explain the effect and significance of the preliminary information for evacuation behavior and the improvement of inhabitants' perception of inundation potential through the disaster education such as a publication of flood hazard map.

View full abstract

This paper develops the methodology of benefit evaluation of “utility”-related public projects under a distorted spatial economy. We treat congestion of public goods and environment externalities as distortions. First, we construct a model of “utility”-related public projects, then we show two benefit measurement formulas. Benefit measurement formulas have terms of the willingness to pay for environmental factors, which can not be directly observed from market. Thus, we develop a new estimation method of the willingness to pay for environmental factors using only observable data. Finally, we apply the newly developed estimation method for evaluating the willingness to pay for environmental factors of a road improvement in order to examine its practical applicability.

View full abstract

This paper studies an efficient social system supplying open space with an explicit consideration of environmental movements by using general equilibrium theory. The results of this study are shown as follows. First, the marginal value of open space can be obtained from the behavior for environmental movements. Second, large-scale developments system, which can internalize the value of open space on rents, needs no assistance to environmental movements. Third, especially in small-scale developments system, the government roll is important because the supply of open space can be either too much or too small compared to the optimum supply.

View full abstract

This paper analyzes the location pattern of firms and workers when there exists heterogeneity of labors which is defined by the difference of ability for production. Although previous papers have pointed out that several factors, like externalities or imperfect competition of firms, cause agglomeration of firms and labors, this paper shows agglomeration caused only by the assumption of the heterogeneity of labors. The distribution pattern in which high producitivity area and low one area are geographically separeterd is shown in this analysis.

View full abstract

The compact urban layout is expected as the ideal urban form from sustainable point of view for coming decreasing society. Now we are required to promote orderly and effective retreat from suburbs, but it is not easy. This study aims to clarify how important to execute Mobility Management with compact urban reform. The case study of local central cities indicates that just retreat from suburbs is not enough to improve indexes concerning sustainability. It is clarified that Mobility Management such as behavior modification is indispensable for retreating residents from suburbs to achieve sustainable target with compact urban reform.

View full abstract

During volcanic disaster of Mt.Fugen in Unzen, a ground surface augmentation project is adopted to reconstruct the livelihood of the disaster victims in Annaka Triangle zone of Shimabara City. By implementation of this project, not only the house that has suffered a great deal of damage but the house which has not suffered a great deal of damage relocated. Since there was no existing official support system about this project, how to twist the precedent of using Annaka triangle zone as a place of disposing debris flow sediments was enforced.
The purpose of this paper is to consider how residents' considered the project and made decisions.

View full abstract

This paper proposes a combined approach of shock wave analysis and rule-based model to determine the time and location of freeway crashes using loop detector data. The model enables theoretical consistency with the underlying effects of freeway crashes on traffic flow patterns which are revealed through the real-time traffic data. The rule-based model captures the progression of the crash shock waves from the crash site by determining the arrival times of the backward forming and forward recovery shock waves at nearby loop detector stations. The experiment results highlight the appropriateness of the combined approach to estimate the crash location and time under various crash scenarios.

View full abstract