Abstract
Light Rail Transit popularly deployed in many areas in Europe, as a new transportation system for livening up a town, has not been so popular in Japan contrary to argument going on for its effects and advantages. With this background, Toyama Light Rail project, renovating an existing train system into a surface tram system, is a case that tried an approach called total design in which many relevant aspects were involved for their synergetic effects. The approach is to reflect design capability as an important element to materialize a compact town by a public transportation system in addition to an approach for a business operation, a development concept from views of long and intermediate span of time. This article is compiling the official policy of Toyama City for livening up the town and the background of city's decision to implement the plan, objects of total design and citizens, an approach that businesses and municipal government were involved in, overall design context associated with the design for every element consisting of Toyamako Lines. It is expressing, as the result of the approach, the change of the town after the operation was inaugurated and a livening up plan of the town from now on.
