The Pattern of Air Passenger Flows in Japan

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explain the characteristics of air passenger flows in Japan based on aggregation and micro data. Especially, studies on flows of air passengers based on micro data should be encouraged because individual behavior is regarded as important in transportation geography.
The log-linear model is employed as the method of this analysis, because it is said that the log-linear model is an extremely useful method to illustrate the connection between departure and arrival.
Results of this paper are summarized as follows. Firstly, most air passengers move to and from Haneda or Osaka airports. Though it has been pointed out in previous studies that airlines expand from Haneda and Osaka airports as centers, the reason for this is that airlines with many air passengers connect Haneda or Osaka airports with other airports. Airlines with fewer air passengers connect Chitose, Kagoshima or Naha with islands near these airports, or connect between airports in the same region.
Secondly, after Japan was divided into the ten regions, the log-linear, model was applied to air passenger flows between these regions. One result is that, for air passenger movement between regions, there are the following cases: one is the case where there are flows between two regions where the same volume of residents is generated in each region, the other is that there are flows in which greater volumes of residents are generated in one region than in other regions. The volume of flows which is generated and absorbed in the Kanto region is as expected, but there are many flows among the other regions which are greater or less in volume than expected.
Thirdly, a further result is that business passengers dominate to a great extent on most air passenger flows moving to the Kanto, Chukyo and Kinki regions, In general, there is a tendency for business passengers to dominate on flows moving short distances and leisure passengers to dominate on flows moving long distances.
From a national viewpoint, in regions where the pivotal control functions are concentrated, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, the Chukyo area and the Kinki area, many business passengers are generated and absorbed, while in zones surrounding these regions, most of the air passengers who move to and from the Metropolitan Area, the Chukyo area and the Kinki area travel because of business, and passengers for leisure are dominant over air passenger flows connected with other regions. This trend is also observed for passenger flows by other transport modes.