TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS OF CYCLIC TIMETABLE AND PASSENGERS PER DISTANCE IN REGIONAL RAILWAY OF JAPAN

Abstract

 A timetable that trains depart from the station at the same time every hour is convenient. This type of timetable is called a “Cyclic Timetable”. We defined the indicator that represents the level of cyclic timetable called cyclic rate and analyzed a time-series change of cyclic rate. We also analyzed a time-series change of relationship between cyclic rate and passengers per distance in regional railway of Japan. As a result, we showed that 51.7% of private railways have cyclic rate of 50% or more. On the other hand, only 10.9% of JR regional lines and 12.5% of former JNR lines have cyclic rate of 50% or more.. In addition, we indicated that most cyclic timetable lines have high service frequency, short distance and many transit line. Moreover, we showed that the lines that have been cyclic timetable since 2005 had 10.7% higher passengers per distance than no cyclic timetable lines.