Host: The City Planning Institute of Japan
Areas with inadequate bus services have increased dramatically as a result of the deregulation of the Japanese bus industry which resulted in suspension of unprofitable bus routes. For the last few years, the introduction of mini-buses called "community-buses" operated by local government has been improving the situation. But, such systems are a high cost to local governments because of the lower population densities and the high running costs. This study aims to deduce a method which makes the most use of the taxi for providing public transportation service to areas with inadequate bus service which has become spread. In this paper, we proposed the Information terminal for calling a taxi from analyzing drivers'records, and performed social experiments on this system. As a result, the feasibility of this system can be proved, and the potentiality of its development can be clarified.
